He was in 19th place in a 20-horse race.
No colt was behind his on the backstretch of the Kentucky Derby except a 25-1 nag called Imawildandcrazyguy.
Calvin Borel didn’t mind.
He was sitting pretty. He was biding his time. He was riding at Churchill Downs, his home track.
Best of all, he was on Street Sense.
“I felt like I had a bomb,” Borel said.
By the time he crossed the finish line Saturday in the 133rd Run for the Roses, he was a wild and crazy guy.
He waved to the crowd, 156,635 subjects of the Sport of Kings that included everybody from Queen Elizabeth II to the king of Super Bowl XLI, Peyton Manning. (Colts win again.)
The 40-year-old jockey hopped in the saddle like a tyke on a hobbyhorse. He slapped himself on the hip and let out a whoop ‘n’ a holler, as they say in his native Cajun lingo down in Louisiana.
Then he wiped tears from his eyes and sobbed, “I wish Momma and Daddy could be here.”
Borel was so excited he began to celebrate his 2 1/4 -length victory before the race was done.
So sure was he that no mount could catch his, he arose from Street Sense’s saddle in a classic victor’s pose — fist closed, like an iron jockey on a front lawn.
“I looked under my arm and I seen we was two or three lengths in front,” Borel said. “There was no way he (runner-up Hard Spun) was going to beat me.”
The Cajun was ragin’. Words spilled out in a bayou dialect: Dat was a great race. Dere was no way.
The Louisianan lives in Louisville now. He likes it here.
They call him “Bo-Rail.” They have since last Nov. 6, when the Breeders’ Cup was run on this same track. Street Sense was way behind in the Juvenile stakes until Borel sent him charging along the rail to win by 10 lengths.
This time, his horse was even farther back. He was in 18th place at the quarter-pole. He sat 19th after half a mile.
Hopelessly behind, some who bet on the 9-2 favorite must have thought.
“Were you worried?” somebody asked Street Sense’s trainer, Carl Nafzger.
“No,” he said.
Long pause. The man referred to by his jockey as “Mr. Carl” could have left his answer at that.
Explaining why he wasn’t fazed a bit, Nafzger instead put it as plainly as he could: “Calvin has a clock in his head.”
What better way to calculate how a rider could have a horse in 17th place after three-quarters of a mile but in third place at the mile mark?
Borel never had a doubt.
“Best 3-year-old I’ve ever been on in my life,” the jockey said. “He’s the kind of horse, he’ll do anything for you. He’s very push-button.”
Never before had ol’ Bo-Rail of the Bayou had a horse like this. He grew up at “the bush tracks,” as Borel calls them, where he said 100 fans might be in the stands on a good night.
Ten Cents A Shine in 2003 was the best ride he ever had in a Kentucky Derby — and that 37-1 shot ran eighth.
“I knew I had the ability. I just had to find the horse,” Borel said.
This time he had the horse and the course. He was at his adopted Churchill Downs, aboard a Kentucky-born colt.
As legendary trainer D. Wayne Lukas said of Street Sense before the race, “He has a guy riding him who knows every grain of sand on this racetrack.”
The jockey’s brother Cecil, a trainer, was here to watch even if their recently deceased parents couldn’t be. It was also the 90th anniversary of a Derby victory by Charles Borel (no relation) on Omar Khayyam — by coincidence, by a little more than two lengths.
Borel’s goodwill here knew few bounds. Even his adversaries were behind him all the way, literally and figuratively.
“All I can say is I’m very, very happy for Calvin Borel,” two-time Derby champion rider Kent Desormeaux said. “He’s a very nice man.”
One of Churchill Downs’ vice presidents, John Asher, introduced the popular jockey after Saturday’s race as “the hardest working man in horse racing.”
When he heard that, Borel did exactly what he had during the race.
He sat back and waited. The race was behind him, but he still was sitting pretty.
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mikedowney@tribune.com
