California Chrome, Hoppertunity, Wicked Strong, and Danza. Top four, in that order. And yes, I am well-aware that California Chrome is the odds-on favorite, which usually dissuades me from predicting a horse will win the Kentucky Derby, but this time I can’t help it. He just looks so darn GOOD!
I’ve always leaned toward the chestnut-colored horses. I guess I can trace this penchant back to my 10th birthday, when a barely-decipherable letter arrived from Gramps, informing me that he’d caved in to my girlish whining and bought me a horse!
Gramps had named him Sparky, and he was a quarter horse/thoroughbred cross. He was young when Gramps bought him, and not yet broken. Sadly, he was still refusing the saddle when he kicked Gramps in the head, which promptly inspired Mom and Dad to sell him.
As far as I know, there was only one photo of him ever taken. Miraculously, that picture survived and Mom made sure it got into the scrapbook she made for me. Naturally, Sparky’s coloring doesn’t stand out in a black and white photo. You’ll just have to take my word for it—he was a bright red chestnut with a jagged white blaze.
Oh, how I yearned to ride that horse! (Let’s face it, at 10, I longed to ride ANY horse, but this one was supposed to be MINE, gosh darn it!) Alas, he was considered “too wild,” and I was never even allowed to get inside the pen with him. Nevertheless, the two of us shared many a longing look through the wire fence.
So this afternoon, as I have done almost every year for nearly 60 years, I’ll be sizing up the horses as they leave the paddock for the track. But I already know my heart’s been stolen by a horse who, in my fertile imagination, might well be one of Sparky’s very distant relatives.
“And they’re off!”