we might hit the board

 those were the words of Eric Reed , he was speaking to his father as they watched their Horse "Rich Strike" make a bold move around one of the derby favorites (Messier) on the home stretch......well, unless you just crawled out from under a rock you know the rest of the story.....he did more than hit the board, he blew past the leaders and WON....the longest shot to win the derby in over 100 years.....the superfecta paid 321K...i always play my birthday in a superfecta 3-2-6-5-....sometimes i put $5 straight on the big races.......can you imagine winning 1.6 million on a $5 bet ? ......even though i did not have so much as a half penny on him, it was still a feel good story...oh, but there's more.

in 2016 a lightning strike ignited a massive fire at Mr. Reeds horse farm in Lexington , KY. He scrambled in the middle of the night to get his horses to safety.....sadly 24 of the 36 horses in his care were lost in that fire. For a man and his wife that both come from a long line of horse trainers, the impact of the fire was almost too much to bare.....he thought seriously about walking away from the sport and his profession.

I had the good fortune to catch an interview he did this morning around 6:00 on Fox News.....humbled before God he was....a modest gentleman.....no speeches about nobody believed in me....or me against the world, or any of the nonsense we hear spewed by athletes after pedestrian accomplishments.....no sir....this guy said when he got home last night his neighbors and friends wanted to celebrate with him....and they stayed up till 2:00 drinking wine .....he said he laid in bed for a few hours but couldn't fall asleep , so he got up and brewed the coffee and sat in his kitchen.....until it was time to drive to the barn for his interview with Fox.......he said he's still haunted by the fire , but he thanked God that his Father was still alive and was at the derby with him yesterday.

I joked yesterday about that horse being jacked up on something , but now i regret even joking about that....this guy restored a small slice of faith in humanity.....a decent man in a horribly corrupt sport. I think about the years i spent riding on Bob Bafferts coatails and all the tickets i cashed....and i do feel bad.....the sport is dangerous enough without trainers injecting horses with anything they get their hands on, just to shave a few seconds off their time....

anyway, i dodn't win a penny yesterday.....and knowing what i know NOW.......i'm glad.