Living A Kentucky Derby Dream With Ozzie Cat
By: William F. Reed

FLORENCE, Ky. (Mar. 20, 2003) - As the officially designated spokesman for Team Ozzie Cat the post-position draw for Saturday's $500,000 Lane's End Stakes (GII) at Turfway Park, I must say that I'm a bit miffed at the media.

I wore my Ozzie Cat hat. I had my "A" material ready. I was ready to talk about how the colt came to be named after my deceased cat, and I was set to amuse them with my Cinderella story about flying on owner William T. Young's private jet to see his first race last August at Saratoga.

I mean, I was a writer's dream. Great stuff. As a writer, you have to trust me on that. I would have loved to interview me.

Instead, the only recognition poor Ozzie got was from Mike Battaglia, the track announcer and oddsmaker, who noted that although cats are supposed to have nine lives, he thinks the chances of Ozzie the colt are as dead as Ozzie the cat.

Ha, ha.

And that wasn't the worst.

Two writers from the Cincinnati Enquirer sat at my table and didn't ask a question about Ozzie Cat. Oh, well. At least they were there, which is more than can be said for the Lexington Herald-Leader.

But the deepest cut of all came from my dear friend Jennie Rees, the superb turf writer for the Courier-Journal and president of the National Turf Writers Association.

She was sitting with me and my pal Sam Ramer, editor of the soon-to-be rejuvenated Backstretch magazine, until she noticed there was a spot open next to Greg Foley, the trainer of Champali, at the next table.

If Guiness has a world record for the five-foot dash, I'm sure Jennie set it. I got the message. She gives our horse no shot whatsoever. On the other hand, Greg has the 7-2 second choice on Battaglia's morning line.

After we drew post position four in the field of nine, Battaglia made us 15--1 in the morning line, which put us squarely in the middle of the pack. Our odds are lower than Chicken Soup, Lots of Sizzle, New York Hero, and Wendlar, but higher - deservedly so, I might add - than Lion Tamer, Champali, Eugene's Third Son, and Saintly Look.

Having received absolutely no attention from my beloved print-TV-radio colleagues, I slunk away from the luncheon, contemplating various methods of revenge if Ozzie were to shock everyone, myself included, by winning Saturday's major Kentucky Derby prep race.

To Battaglia: "I'm sorry, but what was your name again?"

To the Cincinnati Equirer reporters: "Just because your city has the Bengals, that doesn't mean you have to dis Ozzie Cat."

To the Lexington Herald-Leader: "I'm so sorry you were so ill or overworked that you had to miss the luncheon."

To Rees: "If you hurry, you can still catch Greg Foley."

Aw, I'm just kidding. If I didn't have a personal interest in this perplexing colt, I wouldn't have interviewed me, either. At this point, the main argument I can make on his behalf is that when we reach this point on the road to the Derby, it's always a mistake to overlook a horse trained by D. Wayne Lukas.

To Lukas, horses are a puzzle that he's determined to solve. He'll go farther with a horse than most trainers because his self-confidence is so strong that he believes he can find a way to bring out the best in a horse, no matter how long it takes.

Lukas Exhibit A is Charismatic, an erstwhile claimer who impressed nobody while finishing last in the 1999 Santa Anita Derby. But Lukas confounded his critics by giving his colt one more shot in the Lexington Stakes at Keeneland. As it turned out, that was the beginning of a three-race win streak that also included the Kentucky Derby and Preakness.

In all likelihood, Ozzie will be the best-bred and best-looking colt in the race. A son of Storm Cat out of the mare Hopespringsforever, there's no telling what he would have brought at public auction had Overbrook Farm decided to sell him instead of keeping him to run.

As a 2-year-old, he ran at Saratoga, Belmont, Keeneland, Churchill Downs and Santa Anita. His jockeys were Jorge Chavez, Pat Day, Jerry Bailey, and Mike Smith. And he didn't run badly, posting a victory, two seconds, and three thirds in seven starts.

He seemed to be a slow learner.

It took him several races to learn to switch his lead foreleg after he straightened away in the stretch. When he had chances to take the lead, he hung, as if he thought he was supposed to run with somebody instead of blowing past. But at some point in the race, he always put in a run that made you wonder what he might be if he ever figured out the game.

In his first start this year, he was second in the Golden Gate Derby, beaten only a nose by Standard Setter in a race he probably should have won. Encouraged, Lukas shipped him to Gulfstream for the Fountain of Youth, where he ran the worst race of his career.

Right after the start, Day took him back, as if trying to see if he was capable of coming from off the pace, and the colt never made a move, finishing last in the race won by the front-running Trust N Luck.

Then Lukas shipped him back to California and entered him in the March 8 El Camino Real Derby, where he finished a dull seventh on the same Golden Gate Fields track where he had run so courageously in Janruary.

At that point a lot of trainers would have thrown in the towel. But even though Lukas told me "he might not come into his own until the fall," the mega-trainer also wanted to give him one more shot on a different track (Turfway) with a different jockey (California hotshot Martin Pedroza).

And what about that string of solid workouts in the morning?

I called Lukas a couple of days after the El Camino Real Derby and told him I had dreamed that Ozzie won the Kentucky Derby with Pat Valenzuela in the saddle. This did little more than convince Lukas, once and for all, that I was hopelessly demented and delusional.

"If Ozzie turns out to be decent," he has said repeatedly, "Billy Reed the owner is going to be the sort of obnoxious person that Billy Reed the writer would hate."

Well, I'm not the owner. That's Overbrook and Mr. Young. I'm just the head cheerleader, mascot, incurable romantic, annoying presence, and world-class hanger-on.

Whatever happens Saturday - and this probably is Ozzie's last chance to prove himself Derby-worthy - I'll be eternally grateful to Mr. Young and his daughter, Lucy, for allowing me to live a lifelong dream.

As a writer, I always thought I understood the depth of emotion that exists between horsemen and their horses. I still get teary-eyed when I see tapes of Secretariat winning the 1973 Belmont Stakes, and I simply can't bear to watch tapes of Go for Wand's tragic breakdown in the 1990 Breeders' Cup Distaff.

Yet you can't really understand until you have an emotional or financial investment in a horse. I first met Ozzie on the backstretch of Churchill Downs a couple of weeks before last year's Derby. I could have sworn he nodded at me.

I've fed him carrots, petted his soft nose, whispered sweet nothings to him. Stop me when you feel like gagging. But I feel no shame in admitting I'm hopelessly in love with these magnificent animals and the people who care for them.

I have a dream.

Ozzie Cat wins the Lane's End Stakes, which earns him a ticket to the Kentucky Derby. And in the 45 minutes before the 129th running of the world's most popular race, I follow him from the backstretch, counter clockwise around the first turn, his heels kicking up little puffs of dust.

The public is yelling. I look up and wave. And in my mind's eye, I see the ghosts of Jim Bolus, Mike Barry, John Esposito, Dick Joyce, Sam McCracken, Bill Leggett, Jack Mann, Whitney Tower, J.B. Faulconer, Woody Stephens, Laz Barrera, Jim Padgett, Howard Battle, and all the other special racetrackers who allowed me to be a part of their lives.

The emotion of the walk before the Derby is surpassed only by the emotion of the winner's circle. At least, having never done it, that would be my guess. I'll have to ask Mr. Young and Lucy exactly how they felt after Grindstone won the Derby for Overbrook in 1996.

I'm not going to make a prediction for this race because, obviously, I'm biased. But I will tell you that my exacta boxes will include Champali, mainly because Greg Foley comes from a good and decent family that I've known and appreciated for many years.

So that's it from here in Snub City. I hope everybody runs to their ability Saturday. The truth be told, if Ozzie can't be competitive in this field, it would be a real stretch to continue thinking of him as a Derby horse.

But to get this far down the Derby trail, with a beautiful horse surrounded by wonderful people, has been the stuff of dreams. I've only missed two runnings of the Kentucky Derby since 1966. Every year, I've vicariously enjoyed the Derby experience through friends.

For anybody who loves horses, or even cats, my Ozzie Cat experience is as good as it gets in this lifetime. Without dreams, impossible though they may be, life would be as gray as the fog clouding a pundit's vision.

Think, if you can, about the world's most coveted race being won by a horse named after a cat who was rescued from the Kentucky Humane Society in Louisville. Think about the kindness of William T. Young and his daughter, Lucy. Think about the emotional involvement that's invested in Ozzie Cat.

Yet every horse in the race probably has a similar story. That's what makes the sport special. If the knuckleheads who run racing can ever figure out how to get out those human interest stories, every sentimentalist in America would have to make racing his, or her, favorite sport.

And that's the story I would have told, had any of my distinguished colleagues been curious enough to ask.

Native Kentuckian William F. Reed has been a sports writer in various capacities for 43 years and has missed covering the Kentucky Derby a mere two times since 1966. He has been a high-profile sports writer in Kentucky for the Commonwealth's two largest daily newspapers, the Louisville Courier-Journal and the Lexington Herald-Leader and was a national columnist for Sports Illustrated, covering among other sports, Thoroughbred horse racing and college basketball. Reed currently pens a column for the Louisville Sports Report and covered Kentucky Derby 128 for kentuckyderby.com. He will be filing frequent installments for CDSN's (Churchill Downs Simulcasting Network) websites throughout 2003.

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