I'm not ordinarily a fan of "the sport of kings" but I've watched this video, which keeps an arrow on Rich Strike through the second half of the Kentucky Derby, maybe forty times now. Just mesmerizing. And you keep noticing new things. At first, I was obsessed with the ground made up: if a movie showed an 80-to-1 underdog coming on like this to win, I'd say, probably with everyone else, "Hollywood!"
And then there's the call. I think the guy was maybe looking through binoculars? He never mentions Rich Strike till he's screamed out that Epicenter and Zandon, "these two," are "coming to the wire!" He plainly thought only one of them could win, last time he'd checked no other horse was within range, but then with around 100 yards to go Rich Strike suddenly invaded his binoculared field of vision. That's a theory, anyway. I give him credit for immediately recognizing that it was the longest shot in the race who had come out of nowhere, seemingly, though the video shows that he came from somewhere—far back, before weaving through most of the field in the last quarter mile to win.
When the video starts, Rich Strike is in 17th place in the 20-horse field. When the leading horse comes out of the last turn, there's just less than a quarter mile to go, and Rich Strike appears to have moved up to 13th place. When the lead horse Epicenter has one furlong to go, Rich Strike has moved up to sixth. He passes them all in the last 200 yards.
Is it weird that this horse race reminds me of nothing so much as the 800 meter final in the 1972 Olympics? But Dave Wottle wasn't 80-to-1.
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