Mine That Bird Trivia Quiz

Answer: Canada

Mine That Bird was purchased as a yearling by Canadian trainer David Cotey for a pittance, because of his small stature, crooked legs, and unsightly gait. But Cotey's faith was not misplaced! At Woodbine Racetrack in Toronto, he won the Silver Deputy Stakes, the Swynford Stakes, and the Grey Stakes. (Jockey Chantal Sutherland, the Danica Patrick of horseracing, rode him in all three races.) Over all, he won four of six starts and became the 2008 Canadian Champion 2-year-old Male Horse. Cotey then nominated him for the Breeders' Cup Juvenile and the Kentucky Derby.

Answer: New Mexico

In fact the ranch is in the high plains just outside Roswell, New Mexico, the city famous for an alleged UFO incident in 1947. Mine That Bird's new owners were Mark Allen and Dr. Leonard Bloch.

Mark Allen obtained the money to buy Mine That Bird from the sale of his family's oil company. The year before, Mark and his father Bill were involved in an oil-related bribery scandal with an Alaska state representative, but in a plea bargain, Bill obtained immunity for Mark. Had Mark been convicted, he would have lost his license to own horses under New Mexico state law, and he never could have taken Mine That Bird to the winner's circle.

Answer: Native Dancer

In particular Native Dancer's tail-male descendants have dominated the Triple Crown races. (Tail-male means direct sire line, from father to son to grandson to great-grandson, etc.) Native Dancer was an accomplished racehorse and quite the celebrity in his day; his only loss was the 1953 Kentucky Derby. "Blood Horse" magazine ranked him as the seventh-greatest horse of the 20th century, while the Associated Press ranked him as number three, in a tie with Citation, with only Secretariat and Man o' War outranking him.

Answer: Smarty Jones

Birdstone spoiled Smarty Jones' Triple Crown bid in 2004 with a dramatic come-from-behind victory by a single length in the Belmont Stakes. He was a 36-1 longshot, as he had finished eighth in the Derby and had completely skipped the Preakness. In the final furlong (1/8 mile or 201 meters), he raced ahead to capture the fastest Belmont time since electronic timing (to the hundredths of a second) was introduced. Birdstone was himself the son of a Kentucky Derby winner, Grindstone (1996), and the grandson of another Kentucky Derby winner, Unbridled (1990).

Mine That Bird's name comes from his sire, Birdstone, and his dam, Mining my Own.

Answer: None of these

Mine That Bird didn't win a single race after he left Canada. In the Breeder's Cup Juvenile, he finished last, by 9 3/4 lengths! His owners might have excused him for the tough competition there. But then he finished second and fourth at two races in Sunland Park, New Mexico -- not one of the more prestigious stops on the road to the Derby, as they say.

In addition to his "funky feet", as one sportswriter described them, Mine That Bird lacked the visible signs of muscular maturity of most thoroughbreds his age; so even though his earnings as a two-year-old in graded stakes races were sufficient to capture a spot in the Kentucky Derby, most handicappers had little faith in him.

Answer: His trainer had a broken leg but drove him in a trailer the entire way

His new trainer, Chip Woolley, had broken his foot in a motorcycle accident a couple of weeks prior to the race. Nonetheless he loaded Mine That Bird up in a trailer and drove the 1700 miles (2736 km) from New Mexico to Louisville, Kentucky in 21 hours. This was remarkable because most Derby contenders arrive with a little more panache, as befitting the elite.

Among the aristocrats at Churchill Downs, Woolley made quite a sight with his big black hat and his handlebar mustache and his crutches. The owner had met Woolley at a bar fight, and he was definitely salt of the earth. During the parade from the barns to the paddock, Woolley grew annoyed and said to an NBC reporter, "If he wins, I hope that people will talk about the horse and stop talking about how he got there."

Answer: A

Mine That Bird was eight lengths behind the pack after they jumped. At the backstretch, though, he charged past eighteen colts in 21 seconds! He zoomed by General Quarters on the rail, swept outside past Atomic Rain, ducked inside, and just past the three-sixteenths pole Mine That Bird did something astonishing. There was no room to squeeze between Join In The Dance and the rail, but he did it. For once, the small size of Mine That Bird was an advantage!

Mine That Bird was so far back that the announcer nearly missed calling him. Tom Durkin was a veteran announcer and not prone to making mistakes, but he was focused on the other horses who were in the lead and didn't see Mine That Bird until he had overtaken Pioneerof the Nile in the final straight.

Answer: Calvin Borel

At age 42, Louisiana-born Calvin Borel got his second Derby win in three years! He had previously won in 2007 but lost in 2008. He used the same rail-riding technique that became his trademark on Street Sense in the 2007 Kentucky Derby. But he wasn't widely known as "Bo-Rail" for his innovative racing until his victory with Mine That Bird.

Many sportswriters in 2009 were calling Mine That Bird's win a fluke. They credited the sloppy track and Borel's skill -- never mind that he ran the final quarter of the race in about 23 seconds, just a shade higher than Secretariat! If he hadn't been capable of that, Borel's technique would never have worked. (And in fact, it didn't work on Denis of Cork in the 2008 Kentucky Derby.)

Answer: No, it was the second-biggest upset.

It was in fact a monumental upset, as Mine That Bird was a longshot at 50-1 odds, winning in a relatively slow time of 2:02.66. But it was not the biggest upset in the history of the Derby. That happened in 1913, when the bay Donerail won by half a length at astronomical 91-1 odds. He set a track record, however, at 2:04 4/5 (racehorses have become faster since then), and he paid a whopping $184.90 for a $2 bet! The winning margin of 6 3/4 lengths was also the second-largest winning margin -- second only to Assault's win by 8 lengths back in 1946.

By the way, up to the 135th Derby in 2009, no horse had ever been disqualified for a foul (a claim of interference), though the 1968 winner, Dancer's Image, was stripped of his title when an illegal painkiller was found in his urine (the owner maintained he was set up).

Answer: No

Calvin Borel opted to ride Rachel Alexandra, the horse that he rode to victory in the Kentucky Oaks, a fillies-only race held the day before the Kentucky Derby. Even though female, she was quite formidable, and much larger than Mine That Bird.

His new jockey, the veteran Mike E. Smith, had won the Preakness in 1993 and the Kentucky Derby atop Giacomo in 2005. Coincidentally, for a while he was the fiancé of Chantal Sutherland, the jockey who rode Mine That Bird on his three victories at the Woodbine Racetrack in Toronto in 2008.

Smith was a hall-of-famer, but he had never ridden Mine That Bird before, and this put him at a disadvantage. Many others agreed that it was wrong. Said Ahmed Zayat, the owner of Pioneerof the Nile (the Derby runner-up): "I have never heard of a jockey moving from a Kentucky Derby winner to ride another horse. I find it disrespectful for America's most coveted race."

Some owners and trainers tried to have her blocked from the Preakness as she wasn't an original Triple Crown nominee. But it didn't work. Besides, the owners of Mine That Bird wanted to show everyone that his win wasn't a fluke. He had to face the filly who won the Oaks by 20-1/4 lengths, with his old jockey riding her.

Answer: place (2nd)

Mine That Bird lost to Rachel Alexandra, the super scary filly who won the Kentucky Oaks by 20 1/4 lengths. She was the first filly to win the Preakness in 84 years (Nellie Morse won in 1924). It was also the first time since 1906 that a filly (namely Whimsical) had won as a favorite. Calvin Borel became the first jockey ever to win the first two jewels of the Triple Crown, the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness, on different horses, Mine That Bird and Rachel Alexandra.

Mike Smith kept Mine That Bird at the back of the field, and then tried to move him up alongside the rail, but the other jockeys were waiting for him, and they blocked him. Mine That Bird had to move to the outside, five wide, and he closed the distance behind Rachel Alexandra, but it wasn't quite enough. In short, Rachel Alexandra won by one length, Mine That Bird placed, and Musket Man showed.

Answer: No

Calvin Borel condescended to ride Mine That Bird again and as before kept him at the back initially. After taking the lead at the top of stretch, however, he had a grueling battle with Dunkirk and Charitable Man. Then, at the 1/16 pole, his half-brother, Summer Bird, rushed past on the outside! In the end it was Summer Bird, Dunkirk, and then Mine That Bird.

Although he didn't win the Triple Crown, Mine That Bird finished in the money in the three classic races. And his breeders in Kentucky thought his crooked legs would never amount to much!

Answer: The only gelding.

Over 110 geldings had entered the Kentucky Derby since 1908 (the earliest record), and only eight had won before Mine That Bird. Some colts become hard to handle, too distracted by their natural drives. David Cotey, the Canadian trainer who had bought him as a yearling, decided to geld him to channel all his energy toward racing.

Otherwise, he probably wouldn't have won the Derby. He was the only gelding in the Derby and the Belmont, but in the Preakness there was also Terrain, who came home in seventh place.

Answer: 0

It was hoped that since he was a gelding he would be a good runner for many years. Unfortunately, that proved not to be the case. He couldn't win another race after the Kentucky Derby victory. His best was third in the Belmont Stakes on 6 June 2009 and third in the West Virginia Derby on 1 August 2009. In the Breeders' Cup Classic, he finished ninth, bested by yet another fantastic filly, the great Zenyatta.

In 2010, his owners switched trainers again, from Chip Woolley to D. Wayne Lukas, a U.S. Racing Hall of Fame inductee whose horses have won the Breeder's Cup and the Triple Crown races many times. Mine That Bird entered two more races at Churchill Downs and two at Saratoga Springs, but never finished in the money.

Answer: He was retired to stud.

Since he was a gelding, he could not breed with mares. Instead, he was retired to the Double Eagle Ranch, where co-owner Mark Allen treated him as a pet. In 2010, the New Mexico legislature voted him the state's Horse of the Year for 2009. In 2013, he was temporarily moved to the Kentucky Derby Museum at Churchill Downs for the opening of the track's spring meet. Joining him was fellow Derby-winner Funny Cide, who in 2003 had been the first gelding to win the Run for the Roses since Clyde Van Dusen in 1929. The crowds loved to see him!

You can find out more details about the story of Mine That Bird in the movie "50 to 1" (2013), directed by Jim Wilson. (In a 2009 "New York Times" interview, Chip Woolley had joked he wanted Clint Eastwood to play him some day, but Skeet Ulrich got the part.) It was filmed in part at the Double Eagle Ranch, and Mine That Bird got to play himself, so he's a movie star as well as a Derby champion!