WATCH ‘RAG’: Julien Leparoux rides probable Kentucky Derby favorite Union Rags during Saturday morning’s exercise session. Union Rags owner Phyllis Wyeth, whose parents also saddled Derby entries, called her run with the undefeated colt a “dream come true.” (Getty Images)
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Union Rags, the horse to beat in Saturday’s 138th Kentucky Derby, is, quite literally, a dream come true for his owner-breeder Phyllis Wyeth, who races the towering bay colt under the yellow-and-brown silks of her Chadds Ford Stable.
Wyeth — a former aide to President John F. Kennedy and wife of painter Jamie Wyeth, a scion of the illustrious American art family — has been a horsewoman her whole life. Her parents, James and Alice du Pont Mills, the founders of Hickory Tree Farm in Virginia, twice came close to smelling the roses. Their champion colt Devil’s Bag was the favorite for the 1984 Derby before being injured. Six years earlier, Hickory Tree’s Believe It ran third in the Derby behind Affirmed and Alydar.
Having a Derby horse of her own is “like a dream,” said Wyeth, a former show-horse rider who was badly injured in a 1962 car crash that now confines her to a motorized scooter. “I know my mother and father are looking down.”
But the dream doesn’t end there. Union Rags — a son of Dixie Union out of Wyeth’s mare Tempo, by Hickory Tree stakes winner Gone West — is descended from the mare Glad Rags, who won the English 1,000 Guineas for her parents in 1966. Yet despite the close family ties, Wyeth sold him, on the advice of her accountant, as a yearling for $180,000.
But when she found out Union Rags was going through the auction ring again as a 2-year-old, Wyeth instructed her stable advisor to buy him back for $390,000.
“He was so gorgeous and had such a great personality,” she recalled. “I said ‘I don’t care (about the price), he’s coming back.’ I really did have that dream. How could I have sold him? That was a big mistake.”
Wyeth sent Union Rags to trainer Michael Matz, who has an interesting life story of his own. A medal-winning equestrian for the U.S. Olympic team, and a hero-survivor of the catastrophic United Airlines Flight 232 crash in 1989, Matz trained the star-crossed colt Barbaro to win the Derby by 6 1/2 lengths in 2006.
Barbaro, who tragically broke down in the Preakness and was euthanized eight months later, was one of seven horses to win the Derby while undefeated. With a bit of luck, Union Rags would also be unbeaten.
Precocious enough to win first time out last July going five furlongs, he then took the Saratoga Special in the slop by 7 1/4 lengths and followed that with a decisive score in the Champagne, slicing through traffic at the top of the stretch to win by 5 1/4.
Favored in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Churchill Downs, Union Rags rallied wide into the stretch but fell a head short of catching gate-to-wire winner Hansen.
In his first start as a 3-year-old, with Julien Leparoux replacing Javier Castellano in the saddle, Union Rags dominated the Fountain of Youth by four lengths. But as the 2-5 favorite in the Florida Derby, Union Rags was locked up in traffic and settled for a late-closing third.
Since then, he has trained like a monster, wowing workout watchers with a :59 4/5 five-furlong drill at Churchill Downs on Saturday.
“I’m very pleased with the way my horse has come through his training,” Matz told The Post yesterday. “It was unfortunate with the way things unfolded in the Florida Derby, but this is a different scenario. There’s 20 horses here, and everybody will be looking out for themselves instead of looking to beat one horse.
“I think it will be a whole different ballgame.”
Wyeth, who is scheduled to arrive tomorrow, is “very excited,” Matz said. “A lot of tough things have happened to her, and she’s really looking forward to coming here. I hope for her sake, it’s the time of her life.”
