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Topic: A nod is as good as a wink (NSC) Return to archive
2nd May 2007 05:53 PM
Ten Thousand Motels Derby horse blind to disability
Click-2-Listen
By Tom Archdeacon
Dayton Daily News

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

LOUISVILLE — Because they didn't know who was looking back at them, they didn't know what they were seeing.

Storm in May — the big gray colt who'll start Saturday's Kentucky Derby — was standing attentively in the early morning sun as two handlers brushed him down behind his barn Tuesday.

An elderly couple in matching white shirts, pants and deck shoes — part of a Churchill Downs tour group — strayed over to watch and were quickly smitten when Storm in May turned their way.

"Look," the wife gushed. "He knows we're here. He's taking it all in."

Actually, he only was taking in half of it.

Storm in May — who lost sight in his right eye just days after he was born — is the most remarkable entry in this year's Derby.

Although racing has had other one-eyed horses of note, they've had a limited history at the Derby:

• In the 1970s, trainer Mike Hines brought One-Eyed Tom here, but the colt was kept from the race when he failed the starter's test by promptly making a U-turn out of the gate.

• Cassaleria did make the 1982 Derby for an owner with a puckish sense of humor. Running for the 20/20 Stable — where the motto was "Thine eye has seen the glory" — he came to Louisville with a bit of mystique. He'd won the El Camino Real Derby running blind after his good right eye had gotten covered with mud. As for the Derby, he finished 13th.

• Three years ago, trainer Todd Pletcher entered Pollard's Vision, a 17th-place finisher named for Red Pollard, the one-eyed jockey of Seabiscuit.

Before the race, vet Dr. Allan Wise explained how one-eyed horses "develop other senses on their blind side. Their tactile and auditory senses improve and that's why you can come up on that blind side and they know you're there."

Storm in May's trainer, Bill Kaplan, was saying much the same thing Tuesday about his colt: "He doesn't know he's handicapped. He thinks he has normal vision. It's all he remembers."

Tracy Hersman and husband Kent, an Army officer now stationed in Korea, were the breeders of Storm in May. Tuesday night by phone, Tracy explained how they'd found a corneal ulcer on the foal, and during a second corrective surgery, a Florida vet accidently punctured the eyeball.

"But (the Hersmans) took that injured baby and just mothered him and loved him and ended up doing an unbelievable job," Kaplan said. "Because of the extreme human handling by them and the people who broke him, he's exceptionally receptive to anything you tell him. They made him the most steady horse in America."

When Kaplan spotted Storm in May at the Ocala 2-year-old sales, it was love at first sight. And that says something about the 59-year-old trainer, who rarely follows the most-traversed path. Brooklyn raised, he's a decorated Vietnam vet — Purple Heart, Bronze Star — was a Manhattan CPA and then a South Florida pilot.

Eventually he gravitated to racing, and while he's had decent stakes winners — and will saddle a second Derby horse, imawildandcrazyguy — he and Felicity Waugh, his business partner, exercise rider and fiancee, have had nothing like Storm in May.

They bought him for a rock-bottom $16,000, sold half to some former owners, and since then the colt has won $459,000, nearly half coming in the Arkansas Derby, where — as a 30-1 shot — he finished second.

Although he'll be a long shot here — something he's been his entire life — the colt has a chance to make his name come true.

"When he was born, we called him Storm in May because we hoped one day on the first Saturday of May, he might really storm home for us," Tracy said. "When he lost his eye, we were devastated. We were afraid the dream was over."

Like those tour folks, she didn't quite know what she was seeing.
2nd May 2007 05:54 PM
pdog Glue!
2nd May 2007 05:57 PM
Ten Thousand Motels
quote:
pdog wrote:
Glue!



Nope. Stud Farm.
2nd May 2007 06:01 PM
pdog
quote:
Ten Thousand Motels wrote:


Nope. Stud Farm.



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