In watching the replay of the May 4 Kentucky Derby (G1) at Churchill Downs, Track Phantom had the lead and inside position under Joel Rosario through the first six furlongs of the 1 1/4-mile classic.
Then you look a bit further back in the field and see Mystik Dan and jockey Brian Hernandez Jr. and you realize that there is another racing lane, or lane-and-a-half, inside of where Track Phantom is positioned. This is the rail-skimming, no-margin-for-error path that Mystik Dan and Hernandez occupy throughout the race on their way to Derby glory.
It's the same rarely used lane in which Calvin Borel guided Mine That Bird to victory in 2009, or was it Borel's inside trip on Super Saver or Street Sense? Yes we've been here before and it's still something to see. After the race, Hernandez, who always has been comfortable in that extreme inside lane, said hewatched Borel's Derby magic ahead of this year's 150th edition.
To land on such a plan requires some amount of honesty in assessing the horse. It's likely not a plan you'd think to put in place if you believed you had the outright best runner. The risk would be too great. Trained by Kenny McPeek, Mystik Dan entered with two wins in six starts and in the Arkansas Derby (G1) had just finished 4 1/4 lengths behind Kentucky Derby rival Just Steel, who wasn't considered to be one of the top two or three horses in the Kentucky Derby.
On that assessment, taking a chance and saving ground made sense.
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"The last 20 years I've ridden here in Kentucky, and as a young kid out of Louisiana, I got the privilege of sitting in the same corner as Calvin Borel. So I got to watch him ride those Derbies all those years," Hernandez said. "With Mystik Dan being in the three hole, I watched a couple of his rides there between Super Saver and Mine That Bird. I said: You know what? We're going to roll the dice.
"And that's the nice thing about Kenny. He entrusts me to do things like that."
Once that decision was made, horse and rider were up to the task. The connections needed only look two starts back to be confident that Mystik Dan would respond inside. In the Feb. 3 Southwest Stakes (G3) at Oaklawn Park Mystik Dan broke from post 10 and through magician-like maneuvers by Hernandez would find himself racing inside early in the first turn. He then saved ground throughout before slipping through a small opening inside of front-running Otto the Conqueror entering the stretch before drawing off to an eight-length score.
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Sound familiar?
While the winning margin would be considerably tighter in the Kentucky Derby, the Southwest score is nearly identical to Saturday's classic win. In the Southwest Mystik Dan finished eight lengths in front of runner-up Just Steel, who, according to the Equibase GPS chart, ran 41 feet farther than the winner. Mystik Dan traveled 5,618 feet that day—the shortest distance of any of the runners in the field and just eight feet farther than the 1 1/16-mile distance of the race.
With that race in his recent history, all involved could be confident that they had a horse disciplined enough to race that close to the rail and courageous enough to punch through a gap (or half-gap!) when called upon.
"We thought we had the right kind of horse to give him that kind of trip," Hernandez said. "So we found our spot under the wire the first time quickly. Then from there, he was just so nice and comfortable the entire way. I was really proud of him that he was able to just cruise along nicely."
On a weekend at Churchill Downs that many riders were avoiding the inside path, Hernandez and Mystik Dan found room to the inside in the first furlong, easing past Dornoch, who started from the inside post. They then moved into a lane that wasn't traversed the entire weekend.
It's an approach that leaves no margin for error, but like the Southwest, Mystik Dan would again travel the shortest route—6,608 feet—of any horse in the field. Runner-up Sierra Leone, who finished just inches behind Mystik Dan, ran 6,631 feet according to the Equibase GPS chart. Forever Young, just inches behind the runner-up, traveled 6,647 feet. In a race determined by inches, Mystik Dan ran 23 feet less than Sierra Leone and 39 feet less than Forever Young.
Sierra Leone, who broke from post 2 under Tyler Gaffalione,also saved ground early but fanned out eight wide turning for home. Forever Young lunged at the start and was away slow under Ryusei Sakai out of post 11. Like the Southwest, Mystik Dan again traveled only eight feet more than the minimum for the race, this time at 1 1/4 miles.
After the race, Hernandez noted how the plan came together and acknowledged the horse who carried it out.
"When I called on him to hit the spot that I needed to right before we straightened—to kind of get a little separation on the deep closers—he did it," Hernandez said. "He jumped off quickly and we were able to get that separation, and that made the difference of them not getting to him at the wire."
This Derby win owed a great amount to Hernandez's riding magic.
"Well, this is typical Brian. He knows what to do out there. I always had a world of confidence in him," McPeek said. "Between the post position draw and the job that Brian did, it gave us a huge opportunity because we saved ground, saved ground, saved ground. And when you look at that photo finish, I think we needed all of it to hold off the second- and third-place horses."
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