Thanks for Another Derby
Kentucky Derby winner I’ll Have Another naps as his connection snap photos in the barn on Sunday morning. (Eclipse Sportswire)
Has it been a week already?
When John Scheinman and I launched Kentucky Confidential for its sophomore season last Sunday, we didn’t know what lay ahead in the next seven days. But we knew we had assembled a talented team of writers and photographers ready to tell the story of Kentucky Derby 138.
And did they ever deliver — Kerry Thomas, with Pete Denk, analyzed the emotional conformation of every Derby starter, with I’ll Have Another, Union Rags, and Went the Day Well making the short list of strong contenders. I’ll Have Another won, and Went the Day well ran well for fourth. Eric Banks wasn’t afraid to take on a beloved tradition and remembered Audax Minor and the odds-and-ends of the old paper Daily Racing Form. Claire Novak looked at black hole horses, trying to spot a dark star this year. John Scheinman and Denk studied every Derby jockey for clues to how they’d ride on Saturday, and Scheinman — a editing-writing-video-making dynamo the whole week — profiled the Smith brothers, asked Andy Beyer ten questions, and interviewed trainer Dale Romans and retired rider Richard Migliore.
There was more, so much more. I haven’t even mentioned Blinkers Off yet, who returned this year with stories of wise guys and Cajun jockeys, or the Eclipse Sportswire photographers, who provided the many wonderful pictures illustrating this year’s stories.
The Kentucky Derby is billed as the greatest two minutes in sports; we’re privileged to have been here for another year. Thank you to our partners at the Paulick Report, and to the companies that sponsored this year’s run — Breeders’ Cup, BRIS, Dark Hollow Farm, The Jockey Club, and TwinSpires — and especially, thank you for reading. We had a great time, and we hope you did too.
See you in 2013, for Kentucky Derby 139.
Jessica Chapel is the co-founder of Kentucky Confidential, founder of 
