Derby-winning jockey to switch horses for Preakness

Calvin Borel celebrated his Derby win aboard Mine That Bird. He'll ride a new horse in the Preakness on May 16. Heinz Kluetmeier/SI Tim Layden's Mailbag Submit a question or comment for Tim Layden. Name: Email: Hometown: Question: SEND Follow Tim Layden on Twitter

LOUISVILLE, KY -- The way Calvin Borel sees it, one of the toughest decisions in the history of thoroughbred horse racing was really no decision at all.

Late Friday morning he was informed by the new connections of Kentucky Oaks winner Rachel Alexandra that they would like Borel to continue riding the sublime three-year-old filly for the rest of the year. That would include the May 16 Preakness, which owner Jess Jackson and trainer Steve Asmussen intend to enter if Rachel's Monday work in Kentucky goes well.

Borel, whose epic, rail-hugging ride took 50-1 shot Mine That Bird to victory in last Saturday's Kentucky Derby (one day after he hand-rode Rachel Alexandra to a 20 ¼-length romp in the Oaks), immediately accepted. The horse racing historians at the Daily Racing Form have surmised that Borel will thus become the first jockey in the history of the Triple Crown to win the Kentucky Derby and take off that horse for a different mount in the Preakness.

It is a stunning choice that Borel viewed as a no-brainer. After working two horses early Friday morning for his trainer-brother, Cecil, Borel stood outside Barn 36 on the Churchill Downs backstretch and shrugged his shoulders to a reporter. "I got no choice,'' he said. "This filly is the best horse in the country. She's the best horse I've ever been on.''

To his everlasting credit, Borel, 42, said exactly the same thing 60 minutes after his Derby victory, even in the afterglow of an incredible win in the biggest horse race in the world. That took every bit as much courage as shoving Mine That Bird through a miniscule hole inside Join at the Dance leaving the eighth pole in the Derby, slingshotting horse and rider to a 6 ¾ length victory.

It was Borel's second Derby victory in three years. The last time he won the Run for the Roses he got invited to the White House. This time he got an invitation to appear on Leno Monday night. Borel and his fiancée, Lisa Funk, will fly out for the show. And that is not the only offer: "The phone has been ringing,'' said Borel Friday morning. "I let Lisa handle all of it, and I worry about riding horses.''

Not just Lisa, but also Jerry Hissam, who has been Borel's only agent. They have been together for more than a quarter-century, since Borel was tearing up the tracks in Louisiana as a teenaged bug boy straight from the Cajun bush tracks.

While Borel was working horses Friday morning, Hissam was working the barns and also working up a sweat. "How do you think I feel taking off the Derby winner in the Preakness,'' said Hissam, invoking the vernacular of the jocks' agent, where the agent talks like he is the rider.

"How many guys have done that?'' This was before he knew for sure that Jackson and Asmussen were going to keep Borel on the horse (Calvin does not usually ride for Asmussen) and before they knew for sure that the new connections were going to make a run for the Preakness. (Although everybody on the Churchill backside had a pretty good idea where the filly's saga was headed; whether she gets into the race is another matter. Keep reading.)

But Borel's unblinking certainty was the overriding factor for Hissam. "There's no doubt,'' Borel said. "I love that little colt in the Derby. Shoot, we won the Derby together. I couldn't believe it. I got to the three-eighths pole and I looked up and saw the way everybody was riding their horses and I thought, S---, we might win this thing. But this filly, she's something really special. If there's a choice, I'll ride her.''

Plenty of others were duly impressed after watching Rachel Alexandra work a half-mile in the weekend leading to the Oaks. "The only horse I'm worried about ran on Friday,'' said Derek Ryan, the Irishman who trains third-place Derby finisher Musket Man, who is also a likely starter in the Preakness.

"Rachel Alexandra is the freak of all freaks,'' said three-time Derby-winning trainer Bob Baffert, whose Pioneerof the Nile finished second to Mine That Bird in the Derby, left in Borel's slipstream.

Borel will surely be criticized by some. The quest for a Triple Crown has been horse racing's obsession for more than three decades, since Affirmed last pulled it off in 1978, the third time it was done in that decade. Since 2002 alone, four horses have won the Derby and Preakness and failed in the Belmont, leaving the racing game tantalizingly close to breaking the streak, but still unfulfilled.

Mine That Bird is still viewed by many as a fluke Derby winner. Not by cowboy trainer Chip Woolley, who said yesterday, "I didn't expect to win the Derby. I thought we could finish in the top 10. But I knew my horse was the best he's ever been.'' For those willing to autopsy Mine That Bird, video of his last two races before the Derby -- a second and a fourth at Sunland Park in New Mexico -- shows that he made a sustained run in each race, but that he made it much too soon. In the Derby Woolley gave Borel only one instruction: "Wait.'' (Woolley, 45, is one of five children. He has a younger brother named Wildon. That's Wildon Woolley. Which has nothing to do with Rachel Alexandra, Calvin Borel, Mine That Bird or the Preakness, but I could not resist writing it).