Excuses, excuses
Twenty men are thinking up excuses for tomorrow. Nineteen will have to use them, and heaven help Javier Castellano if he's one of them.
Castellano is riding Bellamy Road, George Steinbrenner's best way to forget that he owns the New York Yankees, and aboard the 5-2 favorite, Castellano also knows that he is one false move away from walking hots again.
But this isn't a place where you'll get a Kentucky Derby prediction. No, we want to review, for your entertainment and edification, what the losers will tell you and what it means. And to do so, we will refer to the excuses we have heard over the past three Derbies because this is, after all, the crown jewel of Triple Crown alibi construction.
Like this classic, from 2002:
"Everyone was trying to predict the race before it was run. Everybody's thinking there's a lot of speed, but they don't ride their horse."
In other words, the field ran slowly from the start because the riders were afraid. In other words, Donnie Meche, aboard Private Emblem, finished 14th.
Or this memorable sentence:
"He got stupid right out of the gate and we were left behind, just where I didn't want to be."
That's Tyler Baze on Indian Express, pointing out that the horse was apparently mentally underclubbed for the task of running fast.
Or this one:
"Considering the outside post, we got a pretty good trip. We lost some ground and there was some bumping around us. On the backstretch he was going really nice. I really don't know what happened."
That would be Corey Nakatani, trying to talk around Quintins Gold Rush's 18th-place finish last year by making sure the horse still has plenty of self-esteem.
There's an art to this stuff for jockeys, you see, because you have to throw out enough jargon to impress the experts without saying what you really want: that the horse is actually a diabolically disguised pig.
On the other hand, there's the tough-love type like Gary Stevens, on Buddy Gil, who ran sixth in 2003:
"He didn't break very well, and all I could do was save ground. I really only got him to run an eighth of a mile. My trip was over after the second stride out of the gate."
Or this, from Richard Migliore last year after Friends Lake ran 15th:
"I just didn't have much of a horse at any time. He just was never in the bridle."
Say that about a basketball player, and you're fired by week's end. Say that about a Yankee, and Steinbrenner is down your throat faster than Epicac with a whiskey back. Horses, on the other hand, can be bought off with an apple and a back rub – like many husbands, if you think about it.
And then there's the jockey who thinks the horse is just named badly and thinks the owner didn't do his or her job, like Rene Douglas in 2002:
"I wish I had a horse who would have responded. I had a perfect trip inside and saved ground, but when I asked him to go, he wouldn't respond."
The horse's name was, remarkably, Wild Horses. As in, "Wild horses couldn't drag Wild Horses into running hard."
And what about preservation as a motivator, as offered by Calvin Borel on Ten Cents A Shine in '03?
"He ran all right and the owners were happy." Hey, what else is there?
Sometimes, though, the jockey forgets who does the work, like Alex Solis on Ocean Sound three years ago:
"I had a good trip, no problems. But my horse just wasn't with me today."
We're proud of you, Alex. We were worried you would have problems, but frankly, and we don't want you to take this the wrong way or get needlessly upset, but We bet on the freakin' horse, and we'd kind of like you to be with the horse, if that's not too much of a bother!
And sometimes, you get the wide-eyed jockey who really is just happy to be there, like Rosemary Homeister in 2003:
"I've had the experience of a lifetime. I've never experienced so much energy, from the fans, the press, the TV, the people … just being on the one horse, first one onto the track and out of the tunnel, I was waving at everybody. I want everybody to feel the same experience I'm feeling. I'll remember this forever."
Her horse, Supah Blitz, ran 13th, and at one point Homeister said, "At one point, I felt the horse say, 'Please don't push me.' " In other words, she may have been having a Wilbur post-Mr. Ed moment, which could be its own problem down the road.
Then again, having to explain a horse to the world because the horse doesn't speak is actually no bargain, so maybe a jockey will resort now and then to a little fantasy: "The horse said if I hit him one more time, he was going to knock me out of the saddle and beat my bony behind right there on the track while my wife and kids were watching."
As long as he doesn't say, "The owner's a moron, and the trainer's a weasel. They wouldn't know a good horse in a field of wolverines."
And we are especially sure that won't work for Javier Castellano. His boss can get really cranky.
Ray Ratto is a columnist with the San Francisco Chronicle and a regular contributor to ESPN.com
