Nobody covers the Kentucky Derby quite like Sports Illustrated’s Pat Forde. He doesn’t just write about college sports and the Olympics. He has been following the Run for the Roses since 1988 when he was a young scribe for the Louisville Courier Journal. This year will be especially memorable since Saturday will be the 150th running of the Derby at Churchill Downs.
The Derby always produces fascinating stories and remarkable moments. We recently caught up with Forde to talk about America’s most famous horse race.
Note: This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
Awful Announcing: What’s the biggest storyline for this Derby?
Pat Forde: “I would say one of the biggest from an overarching standpoint is equine safety and the aftermath of last year when a dozen horses died in a period of like 10 days leading up to the Derby either in training or in competition. That cast a pall over everything. Churchill took the extraordinary step to shut down their meet and overhaul the track even though they didn’t reach any definitive conclusions about what happened. I think everybody’s been, I wouldn’t say on pins and needles, but certainly highly vigilant about how the track is operating this week and whether the horses are safe. So far, they have been.”
What was your reaction to the draw?
“The draw didn’t do any favors to the best two horses. Certainly, Sierra Leone getting buried in the No.2 spot is a complication. Fierceness being out in No.17 might not be ideal. I don’t think that one’s that bad. Although post-position 17 is 0 for 44 in Derby history. I think that’s more of a statistical anomaly than anything else.”
Derby favorite Fierceness galloping out after his last major pre-race work: pic.twitter.com/uXBHQFVjGQ
— Pat Forde (@ByPatForde) April 26, 2024
Which horse do you like and why?
“I like Fierceness. I think he has turned in the best performances to date of anybody. His Florida Derby was spectacular, and he looks the part. He’s athletic, he’s fast, he’s not big. But if he can avoid race trouble, which is no small if given a 20-horse field, I think he’s going to be out near the front, stay there, and draw off in the stretch.”
If you had to pick a long shot, who would it be?
“Forever Young is the Japanese import. Not a super long shot, I think at 10-to-1. The Japanese are getting closer to winning a Derby. It’s inevitable. They have done a phenomenal job buying up quality American broodstock and then building their own breeding operation in Japan. They’re making bigger and bigger inroads, and it’s going to happen. Is Forever Young that horse? I don’t know.
“If you want to get down to longer shots, I liked Dornoch until it drew the No.1 hole. I think that horse has looked very impressive in the mornings. Resilience is another one I think has a chance to make some noise. Stronghold as well. The Santa Anita Derby winner is getting almost no buzz, which is rare.”
Is there a sentimental storyline that people might be rooting for?
“There’s a couple of them. West Saratoga, an $11,000 horse. Costs basically as much as a used Kia. The trainer, Larry Demeritte, is from the Bahamas. He has lived in Kentucky for 50 years. He’s in his 70s. He’s got cancer. He took a chemotherapy treatment last week. He’s got an incredible backstory. He’s never had a Derby horse, and now here he is with a cheap one. He has an impressive attitude about him, that’s for sure.
“The other is D. Wayne Lukas, age 88, trying to win his fifth Kentucky Derby. One of the most accomplished careers in thoroughbred training history. Really hadn’t been much of a factor of late. May not be a factor here, but by golly, he’s still here and still gets on a horse every morning.”
Does Bob Baffert not being there due to his suspension take away from the Derby?
“It is an absence for sure, but I think he brought it on himself. I don’t know whether there are a whole lot of people in horse racing who are spending any time lamenting Bob Baffert’s luck. He does have an excellent 3-year-old horse named Muth that won the Arkansas Derby and may well be favored in the Preakness but is uninvited here.
“The last couple of years, Baffert has had good horses that owners have moved to other trainers for the Derby. This year, Amr Zedan, the owner, didn’t do that and tried to fight in court to get Muth in the race and lost. There’s certainly a good horse in Bob Baffert’s name that’s not part of the mix.”
Do you have a good Derby story?
“The worst beat was 2001. A group of Courier Journal people, five of us, put in five names to take a swing at the Superfecta. We all put in our names and did a little vote. We had our five horses selected. On Thursday of Derby week, one of our writers went to the track and showed our list of horses to a very accomplished trainer. He said, ‘What do you think?’ (The trainer) said, ‘Eh, they all look good except this one. I think he’s a little off. Something’s not right with that horse. I would toss that one out.’ So we did toss that one out and put in another one. The horse we tossed out was Monarchos, who won in the second-fastest time in Derby history. We had the other three and would have won tens of thousands of dollars had we not listened to that trainer.”
Churchill Downs at 150. Dazzling. pic.twitter.com/DH6f5rm1Fy
— Pat Forde (@ByPatForde) April 28, 2024
Switching gears, what has been the most surprising thing this offseason in college basketball?
“(John) Calipari leaving Kentucky and Kentucky hiring Mark Pope were both certainly unforeseen developments. I think it was an admission by Cal that he didn’t think he could do it anymore at Kentucky. He didn’t want to take the heat, so he got out of the kitchen. Kentucky went all in trying to get Scott Drew. Didn’t get him and hired a guy who I like and I think is a good coach. But has also won a grand total of zero NCAA tournament games. Kentucky has not had a coach with that kind of résumé since Joe B. Hall was promoted to replace Adolph Rupp in the 70s. I like Pope a lot. I think he struck all the right chords in his introduction. But he’s got some proving to do come next March.”
You’re covering the Olympics in Paris. How will your Summer Games experience be different than the last one?
“First of all, my child is not going to be involved. Secondly, there’s no pandemic. Hallelujah. Paris is one of the world’s great cities. I think it’s going to be awesome. “The biggest story in France is going to be Léon Marchand, a French swimmer who could win three individual gold medals. He’s the world record holder in the 400 IM, broke Michael Phelps’ last individual world record. He’s unbelievable, and he’s trained by Phelps’ old coach, Bob Bowman.”
What is Olympic silver medalist Brooke Forde up to these days?
“She’s in the Peace Corps in Peru. She’s doing great, experiencing a completely different culture and a completely different way of living. A lot of it’s great. Some of it’s not. But she wanted to do something service-oriented. She wanted to travel internationally. She’s fluent in Spanish. She’s putting some work from her two degrees at Stanford into it: global health solutions and epidemiology. So she’s doing some public health work there. But also teaching at the school in her village and trying to get a youth center opened. The village is San Nicolas. It’s about a 27-month (stint). She’s got about 7 months to go.”
Do you know what’s next for her after that?
“No. I’m dying to find out.”
