CUP of COFFEE Everyone Into the Pool With a Superhorse

CUP of COFFEE Everyone Into the Pool With a Superhorse

By Sean Clancy

Sean Clancy

Photo © by Vicky Moon

The first Saturday in May, 1977. Dad organized a Kentucky Derby pool at the barn every year, drawing names out of his Irish tweed cap. Exercise riders, hotwalkers, grooms, the blacksmith, the feed man, all in with a chance, the closest they’d ever get to a Derby winner. Five bucks a horse. Dad always spotted me the money and I always drew for my mom, distracted, and my sister, disinterested.

The folded slips of paper swam around as my dad shook his hat from the tack room at Brandywine Stable, the private training facility at Delaware Park. My dad’s cursive scrawl of each Derby starter was on each slip, some even spelled correctly. There was one slip you wanted in 1977.

Seattle Slew. Undefeated. The odds-on favorite. A bona fide superstar.

“Is he still in there?” I asked Dad.

He nodded, smiled, an affirmation of possibility. I knew I would find Seattle Slew in the confetti of hope.

“This one’s for me, Dad.” I reached in, fished through the slips of paper as if I was sifting for gold, waiting for the one which felt right. I pulled out the slip and opened it up. Flag Officer. Who the hell is Flag Officer? My dad shrugged his shoulders, his youngest son learning the vagaries of racing, gambling, disappointment. Two Labrador Retrievers, Babsie and Puddles, wagged their tails, ignorant of my dismay, my disgust.

“This one’s for Mom,” I said, reaching back into the hat. Run Dusty Run. Second choice. Trained by Smiley Adams, the seven-time winner had a shot if Seattle Slew stumbled. “This one’s for Sheila.” And there it was, scratched across a slip of paper and etched into my soul. Slew. I looked at dad. Only he and I would ever know. “That was mine…that was mine…that was mine. Come on, Dad. Please, Dad. Sheila’s sleeping. She doesn’t even know who Seattle Slew is, she’ll never know…”

Dad didn’t budge, standing his ground, another lesson delivered with a father’s decisiveness. I was mad at him and proud of him all at the same time.

Crestfallen, I shuffled back to the house, Babsie and Puddles keeping their distance. “Sheila got Seattle Slew.” My mom smiled, “Good for Sheila.” Of course, Seattle Slew won the Derby, overcoming a bungling start, slicing into a stalking spot in a matter of strides and in the clear for good as the field went under the wire the first time. Slew’s trainer, the late Billy Turner, a former steeplechase jockey, had called his jockey, Jean Cruguet, a “cold competitor” before the race. Cruguet was ice in a cauldron.

The “alleged superhorse” as Howard Cosell put it before the race, emphatically became the superhorse, tacking on the Preakness and Belmont Stakes to win the Triple Crown five weeks later. The $17,000 freak, the first undefeated winner of the world’s most famous race. Run Dusty Run closed ground but chased in vain, a gallant second. Flag Officer got hot and dirty, finishing 10th. Sheila pocketed $75. How long did it take for me to get over it? I’ll let you know.

And now here we are, 45 years after Seattle Slew (and Sheila) took the money. I’ve watched every Derby since, from the confident Affirmed to the confounding Medina Spirit, a victory that is still in question after a failed drug test. I have yet to win the hat pool. This year, we’ll watch the Derby at Hill School’s 45th annual auction, “A Day at the Races.”

Perhaps, they’ll have a hat pool. Don’t tell Sheila.