BOZICH | 1 year after shocking Kentucky Derby win, Rich Strike, trainer Eric Reed return to Churchill Downs | Derby 149

LEXINGTON, Ky. (WDRB) -- Don't ask trainer Eric Reed to describe the feeling of winning the Kentucky Derby with Rich Strike last year. Searching for the right words leaves the trainer finishing up the track.

"I don't think there's a word in the dictionary that will tell you how I felt," Reed said.

"If there was a drug that could make somebody feel that way, it would be illegal, because you just shouldn't be able to feel that happy."

I know. You know. Everybody knows. On the morning before the Derby, Rich Strike was not part of the 20-horse field.

Go home. Nothing to see here. Reed told his family and workers in his barn to make other plans for the first Saturday in May.

Reed had already given a statement to Marty McGee of the Daily Racing Form about his disappointment about being the first horse left out of the race. If everything went according to plan, Rich Strike would test the top 3-year-olds at Belmont Park.

Then, an hour before the deadline, another horse scratched. When Reed got the telephone call from Churchill steward Barbara Borden asking if he wanted to enter Rich Strike, he nearly hyperventilated.

"I couldn't talk," he said. "I really couldn't even answer. I had to get a big breath."

Take all the deep breaths you need, Eric. You're going to need them. Getting into the race was the only break Rich Strike needed to roar down the Churchill Downs stretch into history, an 80-1 Derby winner.

Passing 14 horses in the final quarter-mile, Rich Strike and jockey Sonny Leon crackled down the stretch to beat the favorite, Epicenter, by three-quarters of a length.

A national television audience as well as a crowd of more than 147,000 watched in disbelief. Reed cannot tell a lie. He watched the race with about a dozen friends and family members on a video board in the Churchill Downs paddock and collapsed to the ground in utter amazement.

"I saw (Rich Strike) kick off again and I remember telling my Dad, 'On my God, we're going to hit the board,'" Reed said.

Rick Strike

"Then KT, (friend) Kent Tyson started hollering, 'Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God!' real loud.'

"Then I kind of saw what was happening. He was about to go by Epicenter. And I told my Dad, 'We're going to win the Derby.'

"He didn't say a word. He was stunned. And while I'm down on the ground, they're trying to get me back up.

"When I got up, I looked at him and he was jumping in place, just the same spot, just jumping up and down, him and my friend. They weren't going around. They were just standing their like their own pogo sticks."

Reed and Rich Strike returned to Barn 17 at Churchill Downs this week, trying to win a race for the first time since last May 7. The colt will race Friday — Oaks Day — in the Grade II Alysheba Stakes, at 1 1/16th miles on dirt, trying to end a five-race losing streak.

"It's not the greatest distance of race for him but it's a good first race back," Reed said. "And that's all I need. And that will set us up for the rest of the year."

Starting with the Belmont Stakes, Rich Strike was outrun by good horses, finishing sixth. He was competitive fourth in the Travers before finishing second to Hot Rod Charlie in the Lukas Classic at Churchill Oct. 1. After a fourth-place effort in the Breeders' Cup Classic, Rich Strike wasn't in top form when he raced at Churchill Thanksgiving weekend, finishing sixth in the Clark Handicap.

The colt got his groove back at the Mercury Equine Center north of Lexington over the spring and summer. He's a star — with fan mail, tourists and special stash of peppermints to prove it.

The 2023 goal is to win the Breeders' Cup Classic at Santa Anita on Nov. 4. Any time Reed feared that he was losing his groove, he pulled out his cellphone and searched for a video of Derby 148.

"Anytime something goes a little wrong or I'm having a rough day, I just turn on that video," Reed said. "And there's nothing wrong with the world."

Reed does not consider himself a star. He's a 58-year-old race track lifer who achieved something he never thought possible. He is now training about 140 horses, 30 more than a year ago. He resisted offers to add clients as well as calls to take on horses in California or New York.

Kentucky is his home. The Derby is his race. Rich Strike is his horse.

May 7, 2022, will always be his moment.

"It changed me in one major way," Reed said. "I have this feeling of satisfaction that I never thought I would have.

"And, in this business, you're never supposed to be satisfied.

"The hunger is there. I'd love to have another horse like that.

"But I never thought I'd get the first one. So, I mean, I'm not asking for any more than I've already been given because I was blessed beyond what I deserve."

BOZICH | 1 year after shocking Kentucky Derby win, Rich Strike, trainer Eric Reed return to Churchill Downs