131ST KENTUCKY DERBY

May 7, 2005

Jerome Moss

Ann Moss

John Shirreffs

Mike Smith

MIKE SMITH: This has to be an overwhelming feeling, it's just an incredible feeling. I stood up, it's like all the strength just left my body, it was exciting and my legs buckled and just hanging on for dear life really. I've been so fortunate to have won some great races but never have I had a win like this, this is unreal.

MIKE SMITH: I know what it's like to hurt that bad, too. Now I'm just glad I got to win one. Yeah, I've been telling this colt, since the first time I got on him where before I ever ran, he was going to redeem his father's name in the Kentucky Derby and I used to tell John that. Just to have made it here was amazing and to have won it, I can't even describe it. It's moving.

MIKE SMITH: Maybe I can do a Sea Biscuit. I've got no hair like Gary, I can do one.

MIKE SMITH: They were going really quick and I'm just so proud of this horse, he had to overcome some pretty tricky moves and the first turn he got carried out and had to ease him back, jump hills, all I could save around the first turn. Had to ease out and get out a few more and get back in there around the second turn, had to take a little bump up and around and just keep working to save all I could save, I was so far back. Saw a little seam heading for home. He's good on the outside, and he just kept grinding and grinding and didn't stop until he got in. That was pretty much the race, but if you watch in slow motion, it was pretty cool.

MIKE SMITH: As far as going into the Preakness and the Belmont, I've thought all along that I belonged, and, yeah, he's never been as good. John Shirreffs is just an amazing trainer. In every race, I swear to you, every race is just a little step forward, a little step forward, a little step forward. He wanted him exactly right until today and he got him perfect. Yeah, strategy did play a lot into it. My buddy, Brian Cox, ask him if you don't believe me, we were talking about how we were going to ride this race after the Santa Anita Derby, that's the honest to God truth.

MIKE SMITH: You know, that day, he just got away flatfooted. Probably the only time in his life, the horse was really acting bad and when he broke just a tad slowly, he got wiped out even there. Not only did he get wiped out, and he jumped the inside. Honestly I believe he knocked the air out of him because he didn't even run. There was nothing like him and they hit him so hard. Sometimes that happens, a horse will not fire at all or people think "what happened," they just get hit so hard from the side, I think they just knocked the air out of him.

MIKE SMITH: Last year, running second again, I started to wonder. I said, man, I honestly believed that I had already won three by now, like I was three seconds. Yeah, it plays in there, but when I met this guy, man, I knew there was hope again. That's the honest to God truth. You can ask John when he gets here, it's our Derby and he's going to redeem his father's name and he did it.

MIKE SMITH: Our conversation would be on the steps he was taking. He is just, as I said, serious at what he does. He would tell me "what do you think, did I give him a little better?" I said, "yeah, you got him a little better." He said, "I can feel it, I know it's there. I just want to get it better and better and better" and he did. He wound this horse up four races ago or three races ago, he might not have made it here the way he did and he came here just right. I thank him and Mr. and Mrs. Moss to be a part of it.

MIKE SMITH: Yeah, the East Coast and the West Coast horses looked great, they looked good in all their preps coming up to the Derby. The California horses were beating each other and some got hurt but had they were beating each other. All along I didn't pay that much attention to it. I just paid attention to the steps we were taking, I loved it. They don't realize, we decided to take him back that day and we walked. They went so slow for California, nine out of ten times they are going to go twice as fast and when he makes that big run, and he hits it he just stays and stays and stays. And that day, they went so slowly that the last quarter mile everybody just picked it up and they left him. And you watch the race, he starts staying and staying and getting it back again and then he galloped out great. I told John that -- I said, "Don't pay attention to the race, just watch him gallop out," and that was our last step to get him here. He did some serious work after that, slow work to get his feet back under him, and he stepped forward.

MIKE SMITH: That was a problem, I was at such a high point when I got hurt. I didn't want to give it up. I came back probably five months too soon. My doctor told me but I was so bullheaded and I wanted to ride the Derby so bad. It took time, and that was a serious injury and a lot of your muscles -- it takes a couple of years before they get back to being the same. I broke it pretty bad. I shattered T-12, hairline fractures and other vertebrae. Your whole body is off. I should have given it the time it needed and it almost ruined my career. I know now when I get hurt, I give myself the proper time. Like I said, after two or three years I knew I was back, just a matter of people having the confidence in me again. You go from being on top of the world and then struggling and people think you're not the same anymore. Inside I always felt that, and just needed a chance to prove it. The last few years have been great, I won a few Breeders Cups a few years ago and the Pacific Classic. The races were coming, I just needed to get back in the groove. Certainly coming back to Kentucky helped me get there. I started riding well and carried over to Churchill and I was proud of myself today. I did good today. I did really good.

MIKE SMITH: It was hard to hear you --

MIKE SMITH: Yes, I did ride him in that win. Matter of fact, I'm the only one that's ever ridden him. He literally galloped that day. He broke well, just galloped behind him for a little ways, about halfway down the back side he just blew the race open and won very impressively. Probably a little too easy. I didn't have to do much with him. Therefore, we were always trying to catch up, you know. I think I answered his question, you're talking about the Preakness, too?

JOHN SHIRREFFS: I don't know where to start but I guess I'll start with when the horse landed. My wife, Ann, and Dottie, following the horse to Churchill Downs and we're behind the van, just thinking how -- what a great feeling to come back to Kentucky with Giacomo, running in the Kentucky Derby, going to Churchill Downs off the plane. Almost brought tears to my eyes, thinking here is a Kentucky-bred horse and he's going to the biggest race in Kentucky. Sort of spectacular. I don't know, it's a great feeling.

JOHN SHIRREFFS: You know I didn't see a lot of the race. I was down on track level so I didn't see too much, but the fractions were very fast and he was a little wide around the first turn. So I didn't really pick him up until maybe about the 3/17 4/16ths pole and I saw the white shadow and said, well, he's moving and Mike got him to the outside and he just started gobbling up the ground and I thought, wow, we have a chance to hit the board, and, oh, no, we might even win it. So it was awesome.

JOHN SHIRREFFS: Yeah, you all know how special a horse has to be just to run in the Kentucky Derby so when you have a horse and you find out early that he might possibly be a Kentucky Derby contender, so the race is in May and you have to prepare him and get him to May for that race. So it's not like each race is so important. It's sort of like the combination of the races have to prepare the horse for the Kentucky Derby.

JOHN SHIRREFFS: I think after the Hollywood where he ran second to Decan's Moon and he looked like he might even win that race; that we thought we had a race of high caliber.

JOHN SHIRREFFS: No, I didn't. I was only born in Leavenworth. My father was in the Army, Air Force, so I didn't stay there very long.

JOHN SHIRREFFS: Yes.

JOHN SHIRREFFS: I lived for a short time in Fort Lauderdale. My father was an airline pilot so he flew out of Miami. So my mother is living there now. I talked to her early. She wanted to know if I was excited and all that. I called her back just before we came over and she had gone out to do some grocery shopping because, you know, she gets really nervous and can't even watch the football games when they are too close so my sister was home taping the show on television. My sister's name is Anita and my mother's name is Mary Jane.

JOHN SHIRREFFS: Probably Giacomo as a two-year-old was a little immature physically. So we just -- we couldn't, you know, push him too hard until he physically developed a little more so, we had to be patient for him physically and then after about the third race, he started to fret a little on the racetrack, so we had to be careful that we didn't push him hard at that time and then he sort of -- everything sort of snapped into place for him before the Santa Anita Derby. He came out of the Santa Anita Derby so well. Then he worked really well for the Kentucky Derby. So, you know, really felt good about that.

JOHN SHIRREFFS: Mill Ridge is really my favorite farm in Kentucky. I just have tremendous admiration and respect for Alice Chandler, for what she's done in the business as an individual, and just for her position in the community. Also, the people that work at Mill Ridge are just the best. Every time I've gone there, everything has just been before perfect. So I just like associating myself with them through the hat and it's like some people like a Yankee hat because they stand for something. I think Mill Ridge stands for something.

JERRY MOSS: I'll give you the byline, tomorrow is my birthday. I wonder what we do for my birthday this year. This was plenty. (Laughter).

JERRY MOSS: This is about as up there as you can get. It was hit records that got me here but this is a pretty great thing. I mean, I guess very few people experience what we've experienced, to win the Kentucky Derby is everything anybody ever wants to do. You just found out I'm not very handy, what else am I supposed to do? Just be a horse man. Working with John and Dottie, that says something about Dottie and Gordo (ph). She's been our racing manager at least 25 years, we've been associated for 25 years. It's just been unbelievable. She's been a source of great faith and hope and she said it's going to happen, it's going to happen. She's an incredible manager, I don't know what we would do without her. She and her husband, David sort of vetted out John for us, her son David, vetted John out. We got with John about six years ago or so and it's just been incredible, just been incredible. We are just so grateful. We live in a state of gratitude and this is quite a trip.

JERRY MOSS: Well, you know, the parallel for us in the music business, I guess I was a little cheap, as I am in the horse business. I don't like spending a lot of money for horses. We have occasionally but very occasionally. In the record business, we always liked to build up our own artists and help promote unknown people, and that's where we had our greatest successes. Here you take a horse like, in all fairness, Set Them Free cost $45,000. She won a few Stakes, she made about 175,000; we decided to breed her. The first three foals didn't work at all, never got to the racetrack and yet we just kept believing in her. Next thing she shows of a beautiful daughter of Holy Bull, and that's when we decided to breed Holy Bull again and that's how we got Giacomo. It's just faith and belief, and expert, if I may say, management on behalf of Dottie and the incredible, incredible help and advice from her son, David. I mean, we're just very lucky. We have a great team, and this is a team sport in a way. There is such a great feeling here and this is such a great payoff, I can't tell you.

JERRY MOSS: Well, it's kind of an interesting story. When I started putting out some records, Herb and I had a record out called "The Lonely Bull". Some of you may have heard of it, it was our first hit. We needed to dress up some records. It was a hit and we needed to get some records in the stores and I really didn't have enough money for the pressings. A guy who presses records, obviously liked me said he would give me $35,000 worth of credit to press up, at that time, 350,000 singles to sell in the stores, and we did; and we were successful and we kept going and this guy kept pressing our records and it was a great relationship. One day, this guy got a stroke, and he had been claiming records with a trainer in L.A. and always wanted me to join him. I said, "I can't do that, I'm just too busy." And he had this happily minor stroke and I went to see him in the hospital. I said, Nate, is there anything that I can do for you?" He said, "Yeah, when I get out of here, you can buy a horse with me." We claimed a horse for 12,500 in 1970, and it was Herb and I and Nate. The horse ran for 10 and she came in third, and then she ran for 20 and won; and we figure that's all you need to know about horse racing. After that, we had some fun there and then we decided we would not want to claim horses. We wanted to do something else. Eventually Burt Bacharach introduced me to Bobby Trango (ph) and got involved with Bobby for awhile and had some fun there, had some exciting horses and great races and then we were with the greats: Charlie Winningham for a while, Brian Mayberry, Ronnie Mackinaw (ph), some great people and we learned through every one of these great men. And eventually, we decided we need to be with something else and that's how we were lucky enough to meet John.

JERRY MOSS: Duroff.

JOHN SHIRREFFS: I don't know, when you're a private trainer, you just have to answer to one person and you're just training the horses of that single person. So having a public stable, different clients, it's a little more difficult to be a public trainer than a private trainer.

JOHN SHIRREFFS: Well, I was thinking along those lines. I was thinking if the East Coast horses were getting a lot of the press, and there are so many Derby horses that can peak for races and then they can drop off. So I knew that Giacomo was a pretty steady performer and I didn't think he had peaked yet, so I thought he had a better racing effort in him. So I really wasn't too concerned about that.

JERRY MOSS: The mare was named Set Them Free, which was a Sting song, and at A&M Records, we were lucky enough and privileged to have Sting and The Police record for us, and we got -- obviously, Sting has been with A&M just about all of his career and we got obviously to know Trudy and their family. And they have a brilliant and talented son, a son named Giacomo, and we saw him, he likes to fool around with the microphone at parties and stuff. The brilliant and beautiful older filly we have, or mare now that's by Holy Bull, was named Styler which was named after Trudy. So we went with Giacomo as a good name for Holy Bull and Set Them Free.

JERRY MOSS: I think Trudy was in New York, and I think Sting was in Philadelphia, and I believe Giacomo was either in New York or he was in England going to school.

JERRY MOSS: Nine.

JERRY MOSS: Well, I was just looking for Mike to see if he was getting through. We were way back at the early part of the race. Even though I had binoculars, it was not the easiest race to see from where we were. As you know, there's stuff in the way and whatever. I caught glimpses and I noticed going around the turn he was getting at least into contention. I always felt, if this horse at least got to the top of the stretch and had some room, we would be able to produce something here. You know, I'm watching him in spurts. I'm going to watch this race 400 times, you know. (Laughter). But watching him in spurts, I saw and he passed and I lost track, and I'm not that familiar with the racetrack, I forgot where the finish line was. (Laughter). So then I saw him running hard and I realized there was still time, and I just knew the way Mike was going, we were going to win. And I look at any and we're jumping up and down. This is quite amazing. We've had a great year. Santa Anita was terrific for us this year. John has just done an amazing job. This here has just been incredible. We have a wonderful older filly with Tarlo and Stanley Park, we just didn't -- running great with this guy and we're just on a roll. That's all you can say. When I saw him, he was still going. He was looking strong and then I saw the finish and I think Ann knew it was over before I did.

JERRY MOSS: Well, as a business, quite frankly, and I'll let Annie fin, as a business, quite frankly, what you're trying to do basically is break even. You know, you just have some fun. If you can have the ride we just had, you know, money is nice. I know making money is a great reward and I like making money. (Laughter). You know, I've been rich and poor and rich is better. But still, it's the emotion and it's that rush you get. I tried to explain it to very competitive friends of mine from the record business. I said, imagine being in a game as involved as I am and you're doing good if you win once every four times, and they look at me and they can't believe it. That would not work for them. I'll let Annie finish the question.

ANN MOSS: Well, we were very lucky to come here in '94 with Sardula (ph) and we were very lucky with the Oaks (ph) and this was the only other time we've been able to come. It's really been a team effort with John and Dottie and David and Mike and all -- to be here, you know, it's a dream come true. It's a business, it's so filled with hope, and, you know, as I think Charlie Winningham said, no one ever committed suicide with an untried two-year-old in the barn. I think our world needs hope and I just am thrilled. And I get to help name. We have a committee of one sometimes, but I do pretty good with the fillies. Just very happy to be here.