A doozy of a next step

Hopefully the truck won't break down the way it did on the trip here.

All that was missing from the scene outside Barn 42 yesterday, where Mine That Bird enjoyed the fame of winning Saturday's Kentucky Derby, were Roy McAvoy and Romeo Posar, the main characters in "Tin Cup," a tale of golfing characters from West Texas who sought fame at the US Open.

Saturday Woolley, his girlfriend Kim, his brother Bill, co-owners Mark Allen and Leonard Black, the folks at Sunland Park (10 minutes outside El Paso), and the people at Double Eagle Ranch in Roswell, N.M., watched a perfect storm come to a conclusion in the 135th running of the Derby. So many things worked in their favor.

I Want Revenge, the early favorite, was a late scratch. Friesan Fire, the post-time favorite, was jostled so much coming out of the gate he was bleeding and never a factor. And all the other contenders turned into pretenders.

The result was a victory for the 3-year-old son of Birdstone, who created headlines when he spoiled the Triple Crown dreams of Smarty Jones in the Belmont Stakes in 2004.

Surprising? Call it stunning for the bay gelding, who was a 50-1 shot. Mine That Bird made his 1 1/4-mile charge around Churchill Downs through the mud and entered the record books as the second-biggest upset Derby winner of all-time.

Forget pedigrees and speed ratings and all the other yardsticks used to determine Triple Crown contenders. Until a few weeks ago, Mine That Bird was just another horse, even at Sunland, which holds quarterhorse and thoroughbred racing through the winter and spring and also has slot machines for folks who want to make the 10-minute trip across the Texas border from El Paso.

Mine That Bird might have been big stuff in Canada, where he was the 2-year-old champion last year, but his last win had come in October, he finished 12th and last in the Breeders Cup Juvenile at Santa Anita, and the plan was to run him in the Lone Star Derby in Texas, not the Derby.

"This [Derby] was not on our list," conceded Black, who agreed to take a chance on Mine That Bird, who was bought in a yearling sale for $9,500 by his original owners, which is a few zeros short of the $3.5 million it cost for Dunkirk, one of the pre-Derby favorites. "Until [Derby officials] told us we were eligible."

The long trip included the truck breakdown in Stillwater, Texas. Mine That Bird was going to be a field-filler, with some people even questioning his right to be in the most prestigious horse race in the world.

The way the race started, the critics appeared right. Getting jostled at the gate in the chaos that always comes when 19 horses head in the same direction, Mine That Bird was last. He was 12th with a quarter mile to go.

But then the karma started to kick in. Jockey Calvin Borel, who already had won the Kentucky Oaks by 20 1/4 lengths on a filly for the ages named Rachel Alexandra, saw an opening along the rail. Borel, who won the Derby two years ago on Street Sense, always sees openings along the rail, which is why his nickname is "Bo-rail."

He slid through the crack and Mine That Bird sprinted into the history books.

Mine That Bird probably won't be favored in the Preakness in two weeks. And if he loses there, he probably won't even make the trip to the Belmont.

"If he's doing good, we will run [the Preakness]," said Allen yesterday morning. "We'll let the horse tell us. We'll run some bloodwork on him, make sure it's where it should be."

The original plan was that if Mine That Bird showed something here, to skip the Preakness and go to the Belmont, like his dad, according to Allen.

"He's come back super, so far," Woolley said. "You've got to do what's best for the horse. We'll see how he is in a couple of days."

But it almost doesn't matter.

"What a game this is," said trainer Nick Zito, who watched his horse, Nowhere to Hide, finish 17th Saturday but who trained Birdstone in 2004.

"I'm happy for Birdstone. God bless Calvin Borel. God Bless the trainer. It proves that you never, ever know."

Mark Blaudschun can be reached at blaudschun@globe.com.