Breeders' Cup Classic: Reed yet to come down from Derby high
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Billy Donovan famously said that winning back-to-back NCAA basketball championships didn’t change his life one little bit. In fact, after coaching the University of Florida to those 2006-07 titles, “I was depressed,” he told Business Insider years later.
Eric Reed has yet to experience that paradox – and doesn’t think he ever will.
“I’m taking this feeling with me to the grave,” he said.
Indeed, six months after winning the 148th Kentucky Derby with 80-1 shot Rich Strike, Reed, 58, is still flying on a proverbial cloud.
“I’m enjoying every minute of this,” said Reed, a married father of five adult children. “We’ve been rock-bottom before, so the best part is all the joy it has given my family. It’s changed our lives, for sure.”
It’s almost impossible that anything will ever match the incredible Derby victory, but Reed will be hoping for a similar feeling Saturday evening at Keeneland after leading over Rich Strike for the $6 million Breeders’ Cup Classic. Owned by the RED TR-Racing of semi-retired Tulsa oilman Rick Dawson, the Keen Ice colt will face heavily favored Flightline and six others in the last of 14 BC events this weekend.
“This is such a tough race, top to bottom,” said Reed, a Thoroughbred trainer since 1985, “but the horse is truly better than I’ve ever had him. I’m glad about that, because he’ll need everything in his favor against this bunch.”
The Rich Strike story is so compelling that several global entertainment companies have agreed in principle to combine forces to produce and distribute a movie about it.
“The agreement is all but signed,” Reed said. “There’ll be an announcement before too long.”
In the meantime, the real-life fairy tale rarely leaves his consciousness as he continues working in a sport that has consumed his life from an early age. Although the demands of being a Derby-winning trainer can be exhausting – “it consumes a lot of the personal time I used to have for my fun things like hunting and fishing,” he said – he’s still a regular in a Wednesday night poker game and still hangs with his same group of friends when not at work or his Woodford County home with his wife, Kay.
Most importantly, the effects on his family have been invaluable.
His father, retired trainer Herbie Reed, “could barely talk for days, he was so emotional” following the Derby, said his son. One of his four daughters, Shelby, 28, was interviewed after leaving the Churchill Downs winner’s circle by a Lexington television station, exclaiming between sobs: “I’m so happy for my dad . . . his whole life has gone into this. Nobody is more deserving.”
“When we finally saw that interview a few days after the Derby,” said Reed, “that was the first time I cried.”
Perhaps the most profound impact, however, came on his daughter,Jessica, who in July 2020 lost her 2-year-old son, Raylin, to a tragic accident.
“Jessie had been in a shell for a long time,” said Reed, “but this horse has definitely brought life back to someone I’d thought was permanently scarred.”
Rich Strike, with Sonny Leon riding again, won’t be 80-1 in the 1 1/4-mile BC Classic, but he still figures as one of the longer prices in the field. And that’s okay with Reed.
“I don’t know if he’s good enough to win this, but he’s the fittest I’ve ever seen him, and I think he’ll make all of his fans happy,” Reed said.
In 2000, Reed was diagnosed with IgA Nephropathy, more commonly known as Berger’s disease, and is grateful that astute treatment and subsequent medication have kept it in remission all these years. He will undergo surgery in early December to repair four bulging discs in his lower back, a nagging condition originally stemming from a 2016 training accident in which his pelvis and hip were fractured and his lung punctured. Later in 2016, he and Kay were devastated by a barn fire that killed 23 horses at their Mercury training center on the outskirts of Lexington.
“The horror was unspeakable,” he said.
Somehow, all the lows have made the Derby win an even greater treasure. The ripple effect on his family, friends, and employees has been incalculable, and Reed relishes hearing different viewpoints of how people witnessed the Rich Strike triumph.
“Folks around the barn have a little more pep to their step,” he said, “and I’ve got a great appreciation for all the stories people have about where they were and how they felt when Richie won the Derby.”
He knows that someday, sometime, he might come down from it all, but for now, it’s not happening.
“It really has been a dream come true,” Reed said. “That’s exactly what it is.”
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