Kentucky Derby: Brown, Good Magic come up short to 'super horse'

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Chad Brown said there was a point in the stretch on a rain-soaked Saturday afternoon at Churchill Downs that he thought Good Magic had “a really, really good chance” to give him his first Kentucky Derby victory. Unfortunately, on this particular day, Good Magic ran into what Brown called a “super horse” in the undefeated Justify and ultimately had to settle for second money after outlasting Audible by a nose for the minor award in the 2018 Derby.

That means Brown, 39, the two-time reigning Eclipse Award winner as the nation’s top trainer, will have to wait at least one more year to celebrate that elusive milestone.

But despite the obvious frustration of coming up short of winning the big one for the fifth time, Brown couldn’t have been more upbeat or gracious in defeat while standing on the sloppy racetrack in the drenching rain talking to a handful of reporters about his horse’s outstanding performance just moments earlier.

“I had a horse today that was good enough to win several Derbies. Just not this one,” Brown said. “I thought at the eighth pole that Justify might come back to us, given the fractions and the fact he was doing a lot of the heavy lifting up front. But that horse had another gear and found more. He was a deserving winner. He’s a super horse.”

Good Magic, the juvenile champion of 2017, gave Brown his best Derby finish. His first Derby starter, Normandy Invasion, finished fourth after an eventful trip in 2013, and Brown ran fifth with Practical Joke last year.

“I’m so very proud of this horse,” Brown said. “It was his first time on this kind of track, he’d never even worked in the slop before. Then to attend a pace that fast for that far going a mile and a quarter, which a lot of people questioned he was capable of. He really came through. His breeding came through. His heart came through. He ran the race of his life. He was just second best.”

Brown admitted he became concerned about the weather and the sloppy racetrack as the day progressed, but got a confidence boost midway through the card from Barbara Banke, whose Stonestreet Stable owns Good Magic in partnership with e Five Racing Thoroughbreds.

“Barbara sent me a video of Curlin winning the 2007 [Breeders’ Cup] Classic at Monmouth over the sloppiest track I’ve ever seen or walked on, under conditions even worse than we had here today” said Brown, referring to Good Magic’s sire, a two-time Horse of the Year. “I also saw Hard Spun, Good Magic’s broodmare sire, finish second that day, so she just said think positive, because he’s bred for it.”

Brown called his quest to win his first Derby “a work in progress.”

“I got a great trip, Jose [Ortiz] rode a very, very good race, there were certainly no excuses there,” Brown said. “I think we all did a great job with this horse, everything my staff and I did as a team, I wouldn’t change anything. Everything went perfect all the way up to today. Sign me up for the next four Derbies if things can go this smoothly.

“But you always leave here learning something for what it takes. I’m still a student of this race, trying to do my best to develop a horse and get a win, and despite the great effort we got, at the end of the day, I’m still disappointed. Not in the horse, just in the result, because as much as anything I want to win this race. So we’ll go back to the drawing board, me and my staff, and hopefully someday we’ll be able to come back here and win one.”