Kentucky Derby Lucky Losers – Gulch (1987)

Nov 26, 2025 Jennifer Kelly/TwinSpires.com

Gulch wins at the 1988 Breeders' Cup Sprint. (Photo by Horsephotos.com)

Trainer LeRoy Jolley, who had already won the Derby with Honest Pleasure (1975) and Genuine Risk (1980), took charge of the colt’s training…

The 1987 Kentucky Derby field numbered seventeen, with five horses emerging as Eclipse champions or sires of champions, a vintage crop of sophomores we remember today. Though Alysheba got the better of Bet Twice on the front end, back in sixth was Gulch, a son of star sire Mr. Prospector, carrying the green silks of Peter Brant.

Though Gulch may not have been victorious in the 113th Derby, he did go on to a winning career at shorter distances and later produced a Kentucky Derby winner, sealing his place in the history of the Run for the Roses.

An Auspicious Beginning

The triangle of white on her forehead was a ubiquitous sight in winner’s circles from coast to coast. For four seasons, Maryland-bred Jameela showed tenacity and consistency at distances from seven to 10 furlongs, so much so that industrialist and breeder Peter Brant paid $840,000 for her in 1981. When she retired, he added her to his broodmare band and then sent her to Mr. Prospector for her first cover, and on April 16, 1984, she foaled a bay colt with a smudge of white on his forehead. Brant would name him Gulch.

Trainer LeRoy Jolley, who had already won the Derby with Honest Pleasure (1975) and Genuine Risk (1980), took charge of the colt’s training, sending him out for his debut in a five-furlong maiden special weight at Belmont Park on June 2, 1986. With Jerry Bailey in the saddle, Gulch got an easy win by 7 3/4 lengths in a fast :57 3/5, turning on speed reminiscent of his sire’s own performances. He followed that up with four more wins, all in graded stakes company, starting with the Grade 3 Tremont at Belmont, the Saratoga Special (G2) and Hopeful Stakes (G1) at Saratoga, and then the Grade 1 Futurity at Belmont before going west to run at Santa Anita.

He met defeat for the first time in the Grade 1 Norfolk, finishing second to Capote, who he would meet again in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile (G1) also at Santa Anita. There, Capote got out to a quick lead, with Angel Cordero, Jr. waiting until the six-furlong mark to make his bid for the lead. But the late bloomer was able to hold off Jolley’s charge, who faded to fifth behind Alysheba in third and Bet Twice in fourth. The performance was enough to make Capote an early favorite for the Kentucky Derby, but neither trainer nor owner was deterred. Gulch would get his shot under the Twin Spires.

A Taste of Greatness

The son of Mr. Prospector started his three-year-old season in Florida, in a six-furlong pipe-opener at Hialeah, where he finished fourth. Jolley then sent the Brant hopeful back north to New York for his Derby preps, where he won the Bay Shore (G2), finished third in the Gotham (G2), and then won the nine-furlong Wood Memorial (G1), beating Gone West by a head. “It looks like he’s peaking at the right time,” Jolley said after the race, anticipating the colt’s 10-furlong turn at Churchill Downs. But jockey Jose Santos, who had ridden Gulch to wins in the Bay Shore and the Wood, was already committed to ride Cryptoclearance in the big race, so Jolley looked elsewhere for a pilot and found Bill Shoemaker, who had already won four Derbies, including the previous year’s on Ferdinand, available for the first Saturday in May.

Breaking from post 6, Shoemaker and Gulch got caught in a traffic jam around the first term and found themselves further back than they wanted. They went wide on the far turn to find running room, but it was not enough to factor into the finish. “I got behind in the first turn, and I let him stay there behind that bunch. If I had gone up, I would have probably got knocked off,” Shoemaker said after the race. “But he ran a good race. He made up some ground, but he was too far out.”

Gulch tried the Preakness and the Belmont too, finishing fourth and third, but won the one-mile Metropolitan Handicap in between, defeating older horses like Broad Brush in the process. Though the son of Mr. Prospector did not have much luck in the Triple Crown classics, his Met Mile performance was indicative of what was to come.

A Legacy of Brilliance

The Brant colt did not miss a dance the rest of his three-year-old season. He tried the Whitney (G1) at Saratoga, where he finished second behind fellow sophomore Java Gold, who then won the Travers (G1), where Gulch was fourth. He continued dancing in Grade 1 company, with turns in the Woodward (second to Polish Navy); Marlboro Cup (fourth to Java Gold); second in the G3 Jamaica Handicap; and then finally a turn in the 10-furlong Breeders’ Cup Classic (G1), where he was ninth behind Ferdinand and Alysheba, the 1986 and 1987 Derby winners.

For Gulch’s four-year-old season, Brant changed trainers, sending his colt west to the barn of rising star D. Wayne Lukas, who was on the cusp of winning his first Kentucky Derby with Winning Colors in 1988. To start the year, Lukas put his new charge in a six-furlong allowance at Santa Anita, a race he had no trouble winning, followed by another sprinting victory in the Potrero Grande Handicap. With a goal of a try in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint (G1) at Churchill Downs that fall, Lukas had Gulch criss-crossing the country and trying stakes from seven to nine furlongs.

He got a second consecutive win in the Met Mile (G1), finished third to Lost Code in the Oaklawn Handicap (G1), was second behind Personal Ensign in the Whitney, and then finished 2 3/4 lengths behind Mining in the Vosburgh (G1). When Gulch arrived at Churchill Downs for the Breeders’ Cup, he had three wins in 10 starts that season and was set for his third try at a Breeders’ Cup race, his career finale set for the six-furlong Sprint.

The field of 13 included Mining and future Hall of Famer Precisionist. Angel Cordero, Jr., was back in the saddle, the pair starting from post 10. Over a sloppy track, they were eighth early, moving up to sixth by the half-mile mark. As the field rounded the turn into the stretch, Cordero took Gulch out to the middle of the pack, finding a clear running lane in the straight as the race’s leaders began to tire. The Mr. Prospector colt accelerated in the final furlong, fending off the flying Play the King to win the Sprint by nearly two lengths. The win was a fitting finale to Gulch’s career, earning him an Eclipse for Champion Sprinter.

The son of Jameela went on to stand stud at Lane’s End and sired 72 stakes winners from over 1,100 foals. Court Vision, out of Weekend Storm, a daughter of Weekend Surprise, won the 2011 Breeders’ Cup Mile (G1) and was later inducted into the Canadian Hall of Fame. Gulch’s most famous son, Thunder Gulch, won the Kentucky Derby and the Belmont Stakes, and then went on to sire another dual Triple Crown classic winner in Point Given, thus ensuring Gulch’s influence on those three races. Though he was unsuccessful on Derby Day 1987, the son of the speedy Mr. Prospector and the consistent Jameela went from lucky loser to Breeders’ Cup champion under the Twin Spires.