Kentucky Derby hero closes out his season this weekend in the G1 Clark back at his favorite venue Churchill Downs. Steve Dennis talks to the colt’s biggest fan, his trainer Eric Reed – the man with the golden toenails …
USA: The Man with the Golden Gun, we know. But if Hollywood is looking for a sequel, another edge-of-the-seat thriller to draw the crowds, there’s a ready-made solution. Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce the Man with the Golden Toenails.
Eric Reed may not be the most obvious follower of fashion, but as far as body adornments go the 58-year-old trainer is out there on the cutting edge, leading the way in racing-related bling. There’s a horse to thank for that, naturally.
Reed shot to permanent prominence, fame everlasting in May when he sent out 80-1 chance Rich Strike to win the Kentucky Derby, the boxcar longshot adding to his two-minute legend when drawing in off the also-eligible list only the day before the race, and then getting up to beat the odds and the opposition in the final strides. You need a little luck to pull off that sort of upset, and Reed was wearing it.
“Back in 2010, I ran a horse [Rinterval] against Zenyatta,” says Reed. “Before the race my daughter Martha – she was just nine then – said she ought to paint my toenails for luck.
"She painted them gold – and Rinterval nearly beat the great Zenyatta, only going down by a neck, so I thought maybe there was something in it, and whenever I’ve had a runner in a big race I’ve done the toenails again.
Badge of honour
“I did them for the Derby, and also painted my right pinkie nail gold. So did the rest of the crew, and in the winner’s circle at Churchill Downs there must have been 40 gold pinkie nails.
“Showing a gold fingernail is like a badge of honour for Rich Strike fans. I’ve seen hundreds of photos on social media, with the words ‘Go Richie’. It’s incredible.”
Nail varnish comes off, so Reed has gone further to memorialise the day of a lifetime, the horse of his lifetime. “Before the Lukas Classic back at Churchill Downs, me, his owner Rick Dawson and a few others went to a tattoo parlour to get some ink,” reveals the trainer.
“We wanted something to make us sorta blood brothers. There it is, on my right arm above the wrist, the number 21. It’s a historic number, his program number on Kentucky Derby day.”
Now every time Reed rolls up his sleeves he’ll remember; not that he is ever likely to forget. Six months on, his moment of glory is the background noise in his day-to-day life, a song in his heart on 24-hour rotation.
“I put it away when I’m working,” he says. “But when I’m at home I just start remembering it all again. It never goes away.
“What do I remember most? Actually getting in the Derby, because up until then it wasn’t meant to be. It was my first Derby runner, I was just happy to be there, already felt like a winner before they even ran the race.
“Then my most vivid memory is when Richie took the lead, because it was like the world stopped. I couldn’t hear anything, almost in a trance, just thinking ‘is this really happening?’”
Reed, who started training in his own right in 1983, is a lifetime horseman whose father Herbert also trained for more than 40 years. Although Reed is responsible for nearly 1,500 winners, he had never before trained a G1 winner before the Kentucky Derby.
He adds: “To have my father Herbert, who’s been such an influence on my life and my career, there to see it … it’s the first time I’d ever seen him cry – certainly the first time he’d ever been speechless!”
Boot up the backside
Reed credits his father for the jolt, the boot up the backside that helped turn him around in the darkness that had enveloped him after his Mercury Equine Center in Lexington, Kentucky, burned to the ground in December 2016, resulting in the death of 23 horses.
“It was the lowest of any low point,” he says, a reluctant contributor to this part of the conversation. “I was finished. I told my father I was done, I couldn’t go on.
“And he told me that 13 horses had been saved from the fire, and I had to take care of them. And people started calling, showing up, people I didn’t know, offering help. Big-name trainers got in touch, asking simply ‘what do you need?’ And I picked myself up, we picked ourselves up. From the worst of times, to the best of times.”
Rich Strike is now the shining emblem of that renaissance, but many in the sport have been slow to appreciate him, writing him off as just a lucky longshot who rudely gatecrashed the biggest party of the year.
It’s true that Rich Strike hasn’t won in four starts since the Kentucky Derby, but he has proved that victory wasn’t a fluke with some sterling efforts in defeat at the highest level.
On Friday, back at his beloved Churchill Downs, he will bid to snap that losing streak in the G1 Clark Stakes and push himself firmly into contention for an Eclipse Award, something to which Reed believes he is fully entitled.
A great horse
“Just because he’s won a big race, they think he has to win every race,” he says. “But this is a great horse, and you won’t see the best of him until next year because he’s still learning and improving. Mentally, he’s still figuring it out.
“The Belmont [sixth] was my fault, trainer error. He’s a habit horse and he wanted to be on the rail, but I told [jockey] Sonny Leon to take him to the outside. The horse came back angry after that race.
“He was fourth in the Travers, beaten a nose and a neck for second. He was beaten a head in the Lukas Classic, and then he was fourth in the Breeders’ Cup Classic after he was carried out by poor Epicenter and lost several lengths.”
There’s time for Reed to consider the unearthly Flightline, as everyone must. “It was an honour to be in a race with him,” he says. “He’s been brilliant at six furlongs and at a mile and a quarter, great at any distance, and even Secretariat never won like he did except in the Belmont.”
Soon, though, he is back pitching for his own star, rallying for Richie, waving the banner on a very personal crusade. “I want to do this for him,” says Reed. “He’s already won the biggest race there is and if he wins a Grade 1 against older horses he deserves the title of champion three-year-old colt. It’s my duty to make him the champion, and in my heart I know I’ve done everything I could to get him the title.
“He’s run in the best races, the hardest races. Saying that, though, he didn’t have as hard a race as I thought he would at the Breeders’ Cup, so here we are three weeks later for the Clark. If it hadn't been at Churchill Downs he may not have gone for it – he needs that long stretch, it makes the difference to him given his style of running.”
Shrouded in controversy
Rich Strike’s last visit to Churchill Downs for the Lukas Classic is still shrouded in controversy, after photographs appeared allegedly showing that narrow winner Hot Rod Charlie might have been wearing toe-grabs on his front shoes – illegal under Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority regulations.
Owner Rick Dawson has instigated legal proceedings, and while the winner’s trainer Doug O’Neill has vehemently rebutted the suggestion, Reed is doing his best to not let the affair become a distraction.
“Look, the whole world saw those pictures,” he says. “I don’t care about any potential disqualification, but it doesn’t make sense – HISA is supposed to clean this thing up. But I’m not going to let it bother me. I’m just concentrating on the next race.”
And the next year. Rich Strike will stay in training at four, when his first objective will be either the Saudi Cup or the Dubai World Cup, followed by the time-honoured route of Stephen Foster and Whitney en route to another try at the Breeders’ Cup Classic.
A throwaway question of whether Reed has another Kentucky Derby winner in his barn is returned with the name of Mabuhay, a two-race maiden by American Pharoah, along with the caveat “you never know until February”.
That may well be true, but, as we’ve seen so memorably, sometimes you never know until the day before the Derby. That background noise moves up in the mix, music to Reed’s ears.
“The Derby is the one race everyone wants to win, and you only get one chance at it with your horse,” he says.
“Winning it fulfilled a dream that I didn’t really have. I was as good as I needed to be as a trainer – had nice horses, won some good races – but winning that one race has given me so much satisfaction for all the years of hard work I’ve put in.
“Winning that race is so important to the business, earns you a place in history. Now I can tell my grandchildren, maybe my great-grandchildren, that I won the Kentucky Derby.”
A golden day, a golden year. Plus the toenails to match.
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