From Dark Horse to Derby Winner: The Unlikely Story of California Chrome

The story behind this year’s Kentucky Derby Winner is similar, with its shades of a hero story, to the winning saga of Secretariat.

Flash back to 2008: She ran so poorly in her first three races that she was dropped into the lowest rung at Golden Gate Fields, a track outside of San Francisco.

Nonetheless, two owners, who were so clueless about horse racing that they called their partnership “Dumb Ass Partners,” bought the mare for $8,000. What was more unbelievable was their decision to breed the undersized and underperforming horse.

The rest is history: That mare bred a foal called California Chrome, the $2 million Kentucky Derby Winner on Saturday.

The Dumb Ass partners are celebrating their dumb luck, after hiring a horse jockey from Mexico that learned to ride on donkeys, and using a 77-year-old trainer with a hard luck story of his own, who is now the oldest ever to win the Derby.

(READ the story in the Bleacher Report)

Thanks to Lisa M. Bauman for submitting the link!