2007 Kentucky Derby Winner
February 23 - Street Sense
Over the years I've become good friends with Carl Nafzger, who trained Kentucky Derby winners Unbridled and Street Sense. Prior to taking his skills to training thoroughbreds, Carl was a bull rider. He's in both the Horse Racing Hall of Fame as well as the Cowboy Hall of Fame.
Over the years Carl has dropped some pearls on me. Going back to his days of bucking bulls in the 60s, Carl talks about being on the same circuit as the musicians doing the same shows and fairs. Carl talks about being drinking buddies with a couple of country musicians - Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson. That's back when Willie still had a crew cut.
In our most recent talk, we talked about safety equipment and trainers being required to wear helmets at the track. Carl laughed and said, "You know when I rode bulls, I only had one piece of safety equipment." - - what was it? "I wore a silk shirt. The bulls just slid right off. One time I felt a horn run up my back and if I had on flannel, I might not be here."
I don't know but that might have been the day that Carl decided to train racehorses instead of riding bulls . . . just sayin'.
Street Sense broke one of the most famous jinxes in horse racing and became one of the best three year olds of his generation. He was foaled in 2004, a son of the great sire Street Cry out of the mare Bedazzle. He was bred and owned by James Tafel, the Cincinnati businessman whose silks became famous through this colt, and he was trained by Hall of Famer Carl Nafzger, who had also won the Kentucky Derby with Unbridled back in 1990. Cajun jockey Calvin Borel rode him every step of the way.
Street Sense electrified racing fans in the fall of 2006 with one of the most dominant juvenile performances in modern history. In the Breeders' Cup Juvenile at Churchill Downs, he came rolling around the far turn under Calvin Borel and rocketed home a ten length winner, the largest margin in the history of that race at the time. He was named the 2006 Eclipse Award Champion 2-Year-Old Male and headed into the next spring as the early favorite for the Kentucky Derby.
Then came history. No horse who had won the Breeders' Cup Juvenile had ever come back the next year to win the Kentucky Derby. The jinx had stood for more than 20 years. Street Sense changed that on the first Saturday in May 2007, when Calvin Borel guided him along the rail and squeezed through a tiny opening to charge home and win the Run for the Roses. The crowd at Churchill Downs roared as the colt who had won there as a juvenile came back to take the Derby. Two weeks later he ran a brave second to Curlin in the Preakness Stakes in one of the most thrilling stretch duels of the era.
Street Sense capped his career that summer with a powerful win in the Travers Stakes at Saratoga, the Midsummer Derby. He retired soon after to stand at Darley at Jonabell Farm in Kentucky. He proved a quality stallion, siring stakes winners including the millionaire Sweet Reason and the brilliant McKinzie, who became a champion older horse. Street Sense is remembered as one of the most popular Kentucky Derby winners of the 2000s, the horse who finally broke the Breeders' Cup Juvenile curse and gave Carl Nafzger and James Tafel their second roses together.
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