Kentucky Derby winner Orb


So for once the talking horse was the running horse too.

Orb who was praised and pointed to all week by the experts for the way he was training proved it was no fluke when he ran down the front runners in the Kentucky Derby and sprinted away from the closers. Orb’s turn of foot when charging from the back of the pack to the lead was truly astonishing.

He did so in deeply impressive style and there could not have been a more popular winner than the Shug McGaughey horse.

McGaughey does things the old-fashioned way and he never brings a horse to the derby unless he feels he has a chance.

“You let the horse take you there,” is his comment.

How right he is and Orb certainly did that. He began early in the New Year by taking the Fountain of Youth, then the Florida Derby and now the Run for the Roses.

In the process he seems to offer the best chance of a Triple Crown winner in over 35 years.

He has the connections in McGaughey and his owners the Phipps team who do things the right way.

McGaughey sounded incredibly confident that he could take the Preakness in two weeks and he definitely has the breeding for the Belmont which his granddad AP Indy won easily. AP won in the second fastest time ever, the glorious Secretariat of course, being the fastest.

So could this be the year?

We’ve had a bunch of nouveau riche owners and trainers try, Big Brown, I’ll Have Another, any combination of Baffert horses to name but a few. But Orb’s connections are the blue blood of racing, eternal supporters, not fly by nights.

I think we might have a true champion and Triple Crown winner on our hands.

Let’s hope so.