LOUISVILLE, Ky. — No horse going into Saturday’s Kentucky Derby can boast a better performance profile, a faster speed chart or a better work pattern than the horse with the most ridiculous name — Archarcharch.
And if that is not enough to get aboard his bandwagon, he is galloping proof that in racing, as elsewhere, luck’s a fortune.
A couple of years ago, Bob Yagos, an Arkansas metal junk dealer, sent his trainer William “Jinks” Fires to the Keeneland yearling sales with $100,000 to buy him a Kentucky Derby colt.
Jinks studied the sales catalogue and zeroed in on four good prospects. He was outbid on the first three, all going for prices far exceeding Jinks’ modest bankroll. He managed to get the fourth, a son of Arch, for a mere $60,000.
The first three yearlings have not been heard from since. The bargain fallback was Archarcharch, and now is a prime candidate to become a turf immortal if he can win the Derby.
That’s luck, big time, especially since the horse has already earned more than $830,000.
But why on earth did they saddle him with such an arch-name?
At the barn yesterday, Yagos laughed and explained, “For three reasons — because he was sired by Arch, because we wanted a catchy name that would give racecallers some fun, and because we wanted a name that nobody would ever forget.”
Mission accomplished! Though around the barn, everybody calls him George.
The trainer, too, has a name that is hard to forget.
“They call me Jinks because that’s what a baby sitter used to call me,” Fires said. “Just remember, my name may be Jinks, but it is not spelled j-i-n-x!”
He may have been a bit jinxed yesterday when Archarcharch drew the No. 1 post, though he was still posted at 10-1 odds.
Still, the 70-year-old former rodeo bull- and bucking bronc-rider is living a dream. After 50 years as a trainer, he’s two days from making his Derby debut.
“I never gave up hope of getting to the Derby,” Fires said. “I always thought it could happen.”
Now it has, thanks to a horse he initially liked his conformation, alert look and placid disposition.
And he soon knew he had hooked a good one. Fires ran him in a maiden at Churchill Downs last November, when he finished an unlucky second. He immediately pitched him into a stakes race at the Fair Grounds, and he whistled.
“That’s when we thought Kentucky Derby,” Jinks said. “We decided to run him in the Southwest Stakes at Oaklawn, and if he won that, we’d try the Arkansas Derby, and if we won that, the Kentucky Derby.”
Archarcharch ran to the script. He won the Southwest, came from near last to win the Arkansas Derby, and here he is now, poised to complete the sweep.
“We have a very good chance,” Fires said. “He has improved with every race and he has continued to improve here.”
He sure has. At Churchill Downs, Archarcharch immediately stopped watches with a five-furlong bullet work in 59.3 seconds, the best move of any Derby horse.
Two days ago, Fires sent him back to the track to exercise his legs, but the horse was so aggressive that clockers designated it a work, a three-furlong blowout in 38.60 seconds. The horse is on fire — no pun intended.
The Derby trip is a dream come true for Fires, a genial man who is the second oldest of nine boys and two girls in a family that is wired top to bottom to the racetrack.
Eight of the boys have worked in racing, including Hall of Fame jockey, Earlie Fires. Jinks’ daughter Krystal is married to jockey Jon Court, who was featured in the TV racing reality show, “Jockeys,” and has ridden Archarcharch in all his races.
Court, 50, has won more than 3,500 races but he has never ridden in the Kentucky Derby till now.
And he’ll be atop the horse with the funny name, just like Court’s father-in-law, the trainer.