Handlers sizing up Derby winner for next challenge

LOUISVILLE, KY. - Mark Allen met Chip Woolley some 25 years ago in a New Mexico bar, when Allen started a fight and Woolley came to his aid. "We've been friends ever since," Allen said. "We won the fight. But we'll let our horse do the talking for us now."

Mine That Bird wasn't saying anything Sunday morning after scoring one of the greatest surprises in Kentucky Derby history. The pint-sized bay grazed outside his barn, a once-quiet spot now surrounded by security and barricades, while his human entourage put on microphones for a live appearance on the "Today" show. In the coming days, his owners, Allen and Dr. Leonard Blach, and his trainer, Woolley, will decide whether he will go on to the Preakness in two weeks.

Allen said Mine That Bird will run in the second leg of racing's Triple Crown if he is healthy. Few of the horses he defeated are expected to go on to the Preakness at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore. Gary Stute, trainer of fourth-place Papa Clem, was the only definite yes. The trainers of Pioneerof the Nile (second), Musket Man (third) and Join in the Dance (seventh) are considering the Preakness and will decide in the next few days.

"It's still hard to believe we came in and actually won this thing," said Woolley, who had never saddled a horse for a graded stakes race before the Derby. "I thought he might go off at 100 to 1. Every [handicapper] said he had the biggest chance of running last of anybody.

"I wasn't too high on my chances when he came by me in the grandstand last. But the horse responded, and Calvin [Borel] did a super job of riding."

Mine That Bird went off at 50-1 in the Derby, and he might not be the favorite if he runs in the Preakness. The 13/16-mile race tends to favor horses with early speed, and Mine That Bird is a closer who should like longer distances.

Then again, the gelding beat the odds handily in the Derby. His winning margin of 6¾ lengths was the greatest since Assault won by eight lengths in 1946. He now has five victories and a second in nine starts and earnings of $1,791,581.

He ran second and fourth in two New Mexico stakes races this spring. Both times, Woolley said, the jockey asked Mine That Bird to accelerate too early. For the Derby, he lined up Borel -- known for his patience and savvy -- and told him to stay eight to 10 lengths off the lead in the early going, then turn the horse loose for one big run.

"After the first 100 yards, he turned off," said Borel, who also won Friday's Kentucky Oaks with Rachel Alexandra. "He didn't fight me; he just galloped. At the three-eighths pole, I thought, 'I got more pony than I thought I had.' He came home a lot faster than I thought he would."

Mine That Bird is only 15 hands tall, about four or five inches shorter than most 3-year-old thoroughbreds, and his feet are a little crooked. But the Triple Crown runs through his blood. His father is Birdstone, who won the 2004 Belmont Stakes to spoil Smarty Jones' Triple Crown bid, and his grandfather is 1996 Derby winner Grindstone.

Woolley used to ride broncs on the rodeo circuit, and Allen and Blach are New Mexico horse ranchers. They never thought they would become part of Derby lore, but they embraced it Sunday. They took their blanket of roses to the new Churchill Downs statue of Barbaro, the 2006 Derby winner who died after being injured in the Preakness, and handed out the flowers to a large crowd of fans.