1996 Kentucky Derby : Full ABC Broadcast

Sore heel and all, outside post and all, Unbridled's Song set the stage for a storybook finish to the 122d Kentucky Derby today when he swept into the lead with a quarter of a mile to go. But in the next 26 seconds, he tired and faded to fifth place while Grindstone mounted a gripping duel against Cavonnier and won the Derby by a nose before 142,668 roaring spectators.

It was the closest finish in a Derby in 37 years and the first time in 63 years that a horse won the Derby after only five races. But it was the 17th straight time the favorite had floundered. And it was the sixth straight victory in the Triple Crown series for D. Wayne Lukas, who trained 5 of the 19 horses for three owners and won it for William T. Young of Lexington, Ky., who had tried six times to win the Derby and finally did in a photo finish.

The finish was the tightest since Tomy Lee outreached Sword Dancer by the length of his nose in the 1959 Derby, and not even Lukas, the most successful trainer in racing history, could pick the winner.

"It was so emotional in Mr. Young's box," he related. "We jumped up and started hugging and congratulating one another. Then it struck me, and I thought, 'Maybe we didn't even win.' "

But they did, and there was irony as well as melodrama in it because their dark brown colt is also a son of Unbridled, winner of the 1990 Derby -- yes, a son of Unbridled, just like Unbridled's Song. Both horses were foaled in 1993, both ran in the Derby, but Unbridled's Song weakened in the stretch and Grindstone came flying through the homestretch into the winning photo.

Young, a stately white-haired man of 78 who made a fortune in peanut butter, remembered, "He was the first Unbridled to hit the ground, anywhere, and he was the best-looking foal in the bunch."

http://www.nytimes.com/1996/05/05/spo...