LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- The Kentucky Derby is a race built around fairy tale endings, but none has ever been more dramatic than the saga of Canonero II.
This year's Derby co-favorite, Mister Frisky, has already captured the imagination of the Hispanic community in the United States, but if the Puerto Rican import goes on to win the Run for the Roses it won't be the first time a Latin American import won horse racing's greatest prize.
In 1971 Canonero II came from Venezuela to shock the racing world by winning the 97th running of the Derby.
Canonero II was born in Kentucky and sold as a yearling for $1,500 at the Keeneland fall sales. He raced twice as a 2-year-old at Del Mar in California before moving to Venezuela, where he raced for owners Edgar Caibett and Pedro Baptista.
Why the owners decided to send a horse of only moderate accomplishments in Venezuela to compete against the top 3-year-olds in the United States is still anyone's guess, because neither showed up in Kentucky. Trainer Juan Arias and Baptista's 18-year-old son brought the horse here. They were ignored at Churchill Downs and were reluctant to reveal trade secrets after the race.
Winning the Derby is a quasi-mythical accomplishment open to anybody crazy enough to dream that their horse can do it. It's not like winning a championship or playoff series because it's only one race, run under the most trying conditions, where anything can and sometimes does go.
Canonero II's story is the kind of legend that keeps owners with little chance on paper of winning the race sending their horses to Kentucky in hope of that one big day.
Canonero II arrived at the Churchill Downs backstretch looking half dead a week before the Derby after a tortuous odyssey. The plane from Caracas to Miami was forced to turn back twice in mid-flight due to engine trouble. When the horse finally got to Florida he was quarantined for four days, then had to endure a grueling 1,100 mile van ride to Kentucky.
The '71 Derby field was wide open after the early favorite, Hoist the Flag, was sidelined by injury, and 20 horses were entered.
Several horses were given a good chance to win the wide-open Derby, but Canonero II was openly ridiculed, especially after he plodded through a half-mile in 53 seconds in his only Derby workout.
'They made me feel like I was at the Derby to be a clown,' the Spanish-speaking Arias said later through a translator. 'They made fun of us at parties. There have been times when I wanted to tell the press to go to the devil, but I contained myself.'
Canonero II was lumped together along with five other 'field' horses as a single betting interest. The other five finished 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th, but the Venezuelan shipper had other ideas.
Canonero II raced on the outside near the back of the pack throughout the early part of the race. When jockey Gustavo Avila asked him to run approaching the far turn he moved from 17th to 4th place within a quarter mile. The crowd of 123,284, the largest audience to ever witness a horse race in the United States at the time, gasped when the horse wearing No. 15 rushed to the lead on the outside in the stretch and held off Angel Cordero's furious rally on Jim French.
Avila kissed the horse after the race, and Arias wept openly as he led his charge to the winner's circle. Back in Venezuela, 10 days of pitched battle between police and students ended when the entire country stopped in its tracks to celebrate a national miracle that transcended political differences.
Even after his Derby victory Canonero II was written off by the experts and given even less chance to win the Preakness. He cut himself in the head during a rough van ride to Maryland, and when he worked out for the race in the ridiculously slow time of 1:05 2-5 for five furlongs a local writer reported him to be lame and a local clocker commented that he'd never seen a horse win after such a slow workout.
Racing journalists Andrew Beyer and Clem Florio watched the workout in astonishment.
'As we walked back from the track with Arias, we made gestures to ask just what had happened,' wrote Beyer. 'The trainer gave us a one-word reply. 'Perfecto,' he said.'
Canonero II broke from the gate with a blinding turn of speed in the Preakness and won the race, setting himself up to become the first Triple Crown winner since Citation's 1948 sweep. He never made it, finishing fourth in the Belmont Stakes.
Canonero II won only won other major race, beating Riva Ridge in a rare battle between Derby winners. He went back to Venezuela, where he became a sire of no particular distinction.
Canonero II died in his stall in 1981, leaving behind little but the realization that a good day on the first Saturday in May can turn an ordinary horse into a legend.NEWLN:
