A Kentucky Derby Burgoo I Trivia Quiz

Answer: Louisville

Churchill Downs opened in 1875 under the auspices of Colonel Meriwether Clark, Jr., grandson of explorer William Clark. Col. Clark was the president of the Louisville Jockey Club, which had formed just the year prior. His father-in-law introduced Clark to horse racing by bringing him to the English Derby at Epsom Downs, Surrey, England. Churchill Downs is named for brothers John and Henry Churchill, who leased the land on which the track was built to Col. Clark, their nephew.

The federal government declared the Downs a National Historic Landmark in 1986.

The Downs is famous for its twin spires, which unfortunately are difficult to view from most angles since the additions to the clubhouse in the early 21st century.

Answer: Red Roses

The garland was introduced for the 58th Kentucky Derby, won by none other than Burgoo King, a chestnut colt from Idle Hour Stock Farm near Lexington, Kentucky. Since then, each year several workers sew 400 red roses into a green satin backing. Embroidered on one end is the seal of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, and on the other, the Twin Spires of Churchill Downs and the number of the running (e.g. 139 in 2013). The horse gets the garland, but the jockey gets a huge bouquet of 60 long-stemmed red roses wrapped in ten yards of ribbon.

As for the remaining answer choices... The winner of the Preakness Stakes, second jewel of the U.S. Triple Crown, is draped in black-eyed Susans (actually daisies painted to look like black-eyed Susans because they are out of season). The winner of the third jewel, the Belmont Stakes, receives a blanket of white carnations. Goldenrod, a prodigious wildflower, is the state flower of Kentucky.

Answer: Willie Shoemaker

On May 3, 1986, 54-year-old Willie Shoemaker rode the outsider Ferdinand (18-1 odds!) to victory in the 112th Kentucky Derby. As late as a decade into the third millennium, no one had broken that record. Shoemaker won 8,833 starts, a record which stood until Laffit Pincay surpassed him in 1999. Shoemaker was born prematurely in 1931, weighing a mere two pounds.

As a grown man he stood at 4'11" and weighed 98 lbs -- a handicap in many occupations but a real advantage in horse racing! After forty years, he retired in 1991.

A year later, unfortunately, a car accident left him quadriplegic, though he continued to train horses from his wheelchair. He passed away in 2003.

Answer: True

The Kentucky Derby is open to three-year-old colts, geldings, and fillies. However, fillies only run rarely, and they don't usually win. The new rules in effect as of the 2013 Derby make it even harder for fillies to run, as eligibility is based on performance in specific races rather than overall earnings on graded stakes races. Even so, many owners will not race their fillies in the Derby because of the risks to the horse in racing against males who tend to be larger. The 2008 runner-up Eight Belles, the first filly to run in the Derby since 1999, died when injuries incurred at the end of the race necessitated euthanasia.

There have been three filly winners of the Derby: Regret (1915), ridden by Black jockey Isaac Burns Murphy, Genuine Risk (1980) ridden by Jacinto Vasquez, and Winning Colors (1988) ridden by Gary L. Stevens. Regret was quite exceptional in fact, and mostly raced against colts. Other Derby fillies of note include Lady Navarre who placed second in 1906 and Prudery who placed third in 1921, not to mention Mata Hari and Nellie, who each placed fourth in 1934 and 1935, respectively. Rachel Alexandra did not race in the Derby, but she beat Derby winner Mine that Bird in the Preakness (2009) and shattered his hopes for the Triple Crown.

Answer: Kentucky Oaks

The fillies in the Kentucky Oaks race over nine furlongs, or 1-1/8 miles (1800 m), and carry 121 pounds (55 kg) over a dirt track. Although standardized in the 20th century to the day before the Kentucky Derby, the Kentucky Oaks first ran on May 19, 1875, two days *after* the first Kentucky Derby. The Oaks is a Grade I stakes race, which means the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association judges it to be of the highest quality. The Kentucky Oaks is the first jewel in a proposed U.S. Triple Tiara, which would include the Black-Eyed Susan Stakes at Pimlico Race Course and either the Acorn Stakes or the Mother Goose Stakes at Belmont Park.

Most Kentuckiana residents (people living in metro Louisville and southern Indiana) regard the Oaks as a local rather than national event, and many schools and businesses are closed on the day of the race. (The schools however, simply call the holiday an "administrative day" so as not to seem to promote gambling.)

Answer: Eddie Arcaro

Arcaro rode winning horses in five Runs for the Roses - Lawrin (1938), Whirlaway (1941), Citation (1948), and Hail Gail (1952). Hartack also won five, with Iron Liege (1957), Venetian Way (1960), Decidedly (1962), Northern Dancer (1964), and Majestic Prince (1969). He also was U.S. Champion Jockey by earnings in 1956 and 1957, and by wins in 1955-57 and again in 1960. Something of a celebrity, Hartack made the cover of "Sports Illustrated" in 1956 and of "Time" in 1958. Both jockeys made the Racing Hall of Fame and had over four thousand career wins. Sadly, neither of these greats is with us any longer.

Willie Shoemaker has four Derby winners (1955, 1959, 1965, 1986). Kent Desormeaux won three (1998, 2000, 2008), as did Calvin Borel (2007, 2009, 2010), and for that matter Victor Espinoza (2002, 2014, 2015) and Gary Stevens (1988, 1995, 1997)

Answer: Diane Crump

Unfortunately, most of the women jockeys did not have spectacular races in the Derby. Diane Crump rode Fathom, who finished 15th in 1974 (the winner that year being Cannonade).

Julie Krone was the first woman to win a Triple Crown race, in 1993 in the Belmont on Colonial, and the first woman to win a Breeders' Cup race. (Rosie Napravnik was the second.) In the Derby, however, Krone did not do as well: in 1992, Ecstatic Ride came in 14th and in 1995, Suave Propsect ended up 11th. Pat Crooksey rode So Vague, who finished 11th in 1984.

Andrea Seefeldt rode Forty Something who finished dead last (16th) in 1991. Rosie Napravnik, however, finished with a more impressive 9th place in 2011 on Pants on Fire and then surpassed that in 2013 with 5th place on Mylute!

Answer: Dancer's Image

Dancer's Image was sired by Native Dancer, nicknamed Grey Ghost -- one of the most celebrated racehorses ever and certainly the first to be made a celebrity thanks to the new medium of television in the 1950s. Peter Fuller, son of Massachusetts governor Alvan T. Fuller, owned the unlucky colt. After Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in 1968, Peter Fuller donated his purse from an earlier horse race to widow Coretta Scott King. Fuller maintained that this action angered the racing aristocracy in Kentucky and that he was set up to be disqualified. Indeed, Fuller had received death threats and one of his stables was set afire.

Fuller had administered phenylbutazone, a painkiller, to Dancer's Image for sore ankles. The drug was legal at many racetracks but not at Churchill Downs until 1986, though it should have dissipated by Derby Day. For some reason, there were detectable amounts in Dancer's Image's bloodstream, and the purse went to runner-up Forward Pass. (Curiously, however, on the 40th anniversary of the race, Dancer's Image was listed on the 2008 official media guide from Churchill Downs, although many sources, including Churchill Downs, still list Forward Pass as the official winner.) Fuller sued but ultimately lost, and controversy remained well into the 21st century.

Dancer's Image passed away after a successful stud career in Japan on 24 December 1992.

Answer: Riley

At 2:45 on a muddy track, Riley became the slowest winner in 1890. The New York Times reported this as evidence of the Derby's decadence. The next year Kingman fared even worse, at 2:52-1/4. In 1896, the Derby was shortened from 1.5 to 1.25 miles, so that record will stand.

(The clue was "the life of Riley", a phrase which originated among Irish-Americans and American soldiers of World War I.)

Answer: 1932

Burgoo King was sired by Bubbling Over, the 1926 Kentucky Derby winner, out of Minawand. Owned by Colonel Edward R. Bradley, Burgoo King was not expected to perform very well in the 58th Kentucky Derby based on his performance as a two-year-old. Bradley let his top jockey, Laverne Fator, have his pick of the horses at Idle Hour Stock Farm in Lexington. Fator chose Hopeful Stake, leaving the little-regarded Burgoo King for Eugene James, a 19-year-old jockey from Louisville.

Burgoo King surprised the racing world as he gunned for the lead in the backstretch and pulled away by three lengths at the home stretch for an easy win. In 1934, Burgoo King retired to stud and lived out his days at Darby Dan Farm in Columbus, Ohio until his death from natural causes in 1946. Young jockey James, however, drowned in 1933 at Lake Michigan.