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| Orb after the Florida Derby Photo courtesy of Coglianese/Gulfstream |
The best horse doesn't always win the Kentucky Derby. But yesterday, he did.
If you want to know what a superior equine athlete looks
like, look no further than Orb, who relentlessly surged
from the back of a muddy pack to capture the 139th
Kentucky Derby with absolute authority.
It takes a really good horse to do that.
When the equine biomechanical experts at EQB
evaluated Orb's cardiovascular system for owner-breeders Janney and Phipps,
they deemed his heart scan results to be "elite." That's no surprise, given his illustrious
pedigree. A grandson of Belmont winner and classic
sire, A. P. Indy, out of a
mare by Kentucky Derby winner Unbridled,
Orb hails from a female family that has been flush with class for generations. It's produced standouts Ruffian, Icecapade, Buckfinder, Private Terms, Coronado's Quest, and
now, Orb.
Through his sire, Malibu Moon, and his maternal grandsire, Unbridled, Orb is inbred, 3 x 4, to the influential Mr. Prospector, bred on a similar cross to Tapit (by Pulpit, out of Tap Your Heels, by
Unbridled). Orb's second dam, the Cox's
Ridge mare, Mesabi Maiden, won
the Black-Eyed
Susan-G2 at Pimlico for Janney and Phipps in 1996, narrowly defeating
favored Cara Rafaela, who
would later achieve Broodmare of the Year status as the dam of Champion Bernardini.
Orb's dam, Lady Liberty, though
never finishing on the board in stakes company, was no slouch, either, amassing
$202,045 in earnings. She broke her
maiden at Saratoga
at three, at a mile and an eighth on the grass, and subsequently captured
allowance tests at Gulfstream, Belmont, and Keeneland during three seasons of
competition. Throughout her career, in
which she won from six and a half furlongs on the dirt to 12 furlongs on the
turf, she demonstrated the same late kick that Orb has shown in each of his
five victories.
Orb's Derby
conquest was no fluke. He ran farther
than most of his 18 competitors, and in the final quarter mile, when it
counted, he ran fastest. According to Trakus,
whose technology digitally measures each horse's performance during a race, Orb
was the only runner to have accomplished his final quarter mile in less than 26
seconds; Orb did it in 25.88. Orb also
covered 80 feet more ground--the equivalent of nine and half lengths--than runner-up
Golden Soul, whose
official losing margin was two and a half lengths. Thanks to Trakus's
saddle-mounted GPS system, we know that Orb's performance was even more
impressive than it seemed.
If all goes well, we'll see Orb in two weeks, at the
Preakness. His unflappable quality dares
us to dream that he could be the first Triple Crown winner of the 21st century:
the second since his great grandsire, Seattle Slew
accomplished the feat in 1977. Orb
seems to be that good.
