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'Hope'-ful entry Longshot colt leads way for trainer, jockey
Posted: Thursday May 04, 2000 09:48 AM
By Nick Charles, CNNSI.com LOUISVILLE -- Churchill Downs in the first week in May is a combination of time, place, mood and the unmistakable signs that something special is about to happen. More than 20 horses are already battling each other just to squeeze into the overflow field and for now there doesn't seem to be a weak one in the bunch. If anyone should know, it's Todd Pletcher. He'll have four horses racing on Saturday. "Everybody else's horses are working good. This seems like the deepest strongest field I can remember."
Eighty-eight-year-old Harold Rose last year had a stroke, heart failure and a quadruple bypass. But his passion for the horses prevailed. "I am excited, but I am keeping things under control," he says.
He's the breeder, owner and trainer of Hal's Hope, an underdog trying to bounce back after a last place finish in his final Derby tuneup. It's a scenario similar to his jockey, Roger Valez, a 43-year-old recovering alcoholic riding in his first Kentucky Derby. "He is the little people's horse." Valez said of Hal's Hope. "Everybody roots for him. He is the little pit bull out there and they bred him in the backyard like they say. He is not supposed to win the Holy Bull at 40-1. Then he won the Florida Derby. And it seems like every time he wins, he is the long shot. So a lot of people will have fun Saturday betting on him." Hal's Hope cost Rose $10,000. This spring he was offered $2 million. He happily said no. "I didn't intend on taking it because I don't expect to have too many more chances to get to the Derby," Rose said. And if you're looking for hidden meaning, maybe Hal's Hope was trying to tell us something. That he's ready to reach for the sky along with a rider who picked himself up off the ground and his octogenarian trainer who has a simple answer when quizzed about retirement. "Ask me when I hit 100."
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