How one jockey's decision will impact the Kentucky Derby

LOUISVILLE, KY. — Mike Smith was hanging out by Barn 28 on the Churchill Downs backside Monday morning, a location that never would have made sense for the jockey seven weeks ago.

Barn 28 is where his Kentucky Derby mount, favorite Omaha Beach, is stabled. Conventional wisdom would have placed Smith a couple hundred feet away at Barn 33 — Mecca for fans, reporters and hobnobbers of all types during Derby Week. That’s the shed row occupied by the king of all trainers, Bob Baffert.

Baffert and Smith teamed up last year to win not just the Kentucky Derby but the entire Triple Crown with Justify. That cemented their status at the top of the sport, an all-time-great conditioner and a 53-year-old jockey who keeps defying the tyranny of time. Yet they will be trying to beat each other, not working together, when the starting gate springs open in the Run for the Roses on Saturday.

Baffert brings three quality horses into this year’s race: Game Winner, Improbable and Roadster. Their riders — Joel Rosario on Game Winner, Irad Ortiz on Improbable and Florent Geroux on Roadster — all are talented and accomplished. But they’re not Mike Smith, winner of two Derbys, seven total Triple Crown races and 26 Breeders’ Cup races.

Smith had the chance to ride Roadster, and he chose Omaha Beach instead.

In 2017, Smith and Baffert combined talents to win the Breeders’ Cup Classic and the Dubai World Cup with Arrogate. Then they followed that with the Triple Crown tour de force in 2018. In two years, the tandem won what probably are the five biggest races on Earth for United States-based trainers and jockeys.

So, what happened to the dream team in 2019?

Horse racing happened.

The high-stakes, chain-reaction, moving-parts, musical-chairs game unfolds every spring, played by riders and agents and trainers and owners trying to match elite jockeys with elite thoroughbreds. As some horses surge and some falter, jockeys jockey for position. Instincts, loyalty and timing can all be vital factors in which rider wins the roses.

Rarely, though, does the annual musical chairs feature a couple of riding decisions as momentous as we saw this year — one in March and another in April. We won’t know for sure who won that game until just before 7 p.m. ET Saturday evening.

“It was an extremely tough decision,” Smith said. “Probably the hardest one I’ve ever had to make.”

Said Baffert last week: “He wanted to make sure I wouldn’t be upset with him. I told him, ‘You don’t have a problem with me. You might have a problem with my wife, Jill.’ … We understand that’s the business. Mike is a great guy, and I’m not really upset with him.”

Smith’s agonizing decision to take Beach over Baffert was actually prompted by another difficult decision before it, by jockey Flavien Prat. It was Prat’s call that set the stage for Smith’s call.

Prat, a 26-year-old Frenchman who has become a rising star since moving full-time to California in 2015, was the rider of record on Omaha Beach. From the colt’s first start in September 2018, when trainer Richard Mandella mistakenly believed he had a turf horse on his hands, through his initial victory five months later, Prat rode Omaha Beach in all five of his races.

And then, after finally finding the winner’s circle, Prat got the wandering eye.

In early March, he opted to ride Galilean over Omaha Beach in the Rebel Stakes, a significant Kentucky Derby prep race at Oaklawn Park in Arkansas. At the time it was a justifiable decision — Galilean already was a stakes winner and he was trained by Jerry Hollendorfer, who had given Prat several quality mounts in California.

“You can’t shun a guy who’s put you on that many good horses,” said Derek Lawson, Prat’s agent.

Prat’s switch provided the opening for Smith to jump onboard Omaha Beach for the Rebel. When he held off Baffert’s Game Winner by a nose, and Galilean finished fifth, fortunes turned sharply.

A major Prat-fall. And a major opportunity for Money Mike.

Galilean dropped off the Derby trail, while Omaha Beach was pointed toward his final Derby tuneup in the Arkansas Derby on April 13. But in the meantime, Smith also was the rider on Baffert’s Roadster, and he piloted that colt to victory in the Santa Anita Derby April 6.

When Smith followed that up a week later by riding Omaha Beach to a win in the Arkansas Derby over another Baffert runner, Improbable, the jockey suddenly had a good problem and a big decision.

Mike Smith’s big decision

Which major Derby prep winner did he want to ride on the first Saturday in May?

Smith certainly knows Baffert’s track record: five Kentucky Derby wins, one short of the all-time record, with the promise of a barn bursting with talent for the foreseeable future. The 68-year-old Mandella might be in the Racing Hall of Fame and is a big winner on the West Coast, but he hasn’t come close to capturing the Derby in six tries.

Yet Smith blocked out what happened last year, and tried not to think about what could happen in future years. He made a here-and-now decision. And right here, right now, he believes Omaha Beach is his best chance to win another Kentucky Derby.

“Who is the horse for this race?” Smith asked himself. “That’s what I handicapped off of. Just this race. Bob’s an amazing professional all the way around. He certainly would have liked me on his horse, but he understood.

“[Omaha’s] got a little more seasoning than Roadster, and that was just kind of the deciding factor. He’s starting to blossom. He’s just like a ball of sunshine going around the racetrack.”

When Smith made his call, Prat’s agent had the logical reaction — he positioned his client for the opening aboard Roadster. Lawson said he sat in Baffert’s stable office in Santa Anita and saw him type out three names in a text to Roadster’s owner as his recommendations to ride the horse in the Derby: Geroux, Prat and Drayden Van Dyke.

Geroux got the call, in part because of his extensive riding experience at Churchill Downs. He’s won the two biggest annual races here other than the Derby — the Kentucky Oaks last year and the Stephen Foster Handicap in 2017.

“It was kind of a lame excuse, but I guess he knows the track,” Lawson said. “I hope he doesn’t screw it up.”

Lawson, meanwhile, is coming to grips with the reality that he might have screwed up his rider’s Derby.

“If Omaha Beach wins the Derby, I’m the idiot who [took his jockey] off of him,” Lawson said.

Still, not all hope is lost this week for Prat. He picked up the ride on long shot Country House, giving him a third straight Derby mount. And first, he’s positioned for a big score Friday on top of heavy Kentucky Oaks favorite Bellafina.

“He’s on a 2-1 favorite in the Oaks and could have easily been on a 2-1 shot in the Derby,” Lawson said. “Not many riders could say that.”

Flavien Prat’s decision begat Mike Smith’s decision — and it wasn’t an easy one. He broke up the dream team of 2018 to ride his dream horse of 2019.

“Right now,” Smith said, “I wouldn’t trade.”

We’ll know soon enough who made the right call.

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