Mage's Derby Win Provided a Life-Changing Thrill

The are 97 grade 1 stakes in the United States.

Fourteen Breeders' Cup stakes.

Three Triple Crown races.

But only one Kentucky Derby (G1).

Each year the Kentucky Derby sparks a lifetime of dreams and in the course of about two minutes provides one highly fortunate set of connections with precious memories that will last for the rest of their lives.

On the most recent first Saturday in May, it was Mage , a 3-year-old son of Good Magic  , who defied his 15-1 odds and brought everyone associated with him nirvana and the kind of fame that will last far beyond the proverbial 15 minutes.

For as long as they walk the earth, they can talk about winning the Kentucky Derby and how it enriched and changed their life.

With Mage on course to run July 22 in the $1 million Haskell Stakes (G1) at Monmouth Park, it will end about two months of time when Mage was turned out for a bit and his connections allowed the magnitude of a Kentucky Derby victory to settle in their souls.

Surely life has changed for trainer Gustavo Delgado Sr. and his son and assistant trainer, Gustavo Jr., who have now become well-known in the sport's top circles after the natives of Venezuela attracted only a modicum of attention for their outstanding work with horses like the grade 1 winner Bodexpress   and Travers Stakes (G1) runner-up Caracaro  .

"We feel like rock stars on tour. Everywhere we go people want to see the horse. It's a wonderful thing. You always thought about it and when it happens it so incredible," said the younger Delgado, who heads the OGMA Investments unit in the ownership group. "When I wake up in the morning, that's the first thing I think of. We won the Kentucky Derby. I pinch myself to make sure I am not dreaming and that it actually happened."

Ramiro Restrepo, a 44-year-old co-owner and the bloodstock agent who spotted Mage for OGMA at the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic Sale of 2-Year-Olds in Training, still shakes his head in disbelief after experiencing the insane attention that follows a Kentucky Derby win.

"Nothing ever prepared anyone, or myself, for the onrush of attention that comes with winning the Kentucky Derby. I've never had a life moment, such as marriage, or children, and you just don't realize how much of a microscope you fall under," Restrepo said. "You get well-wishes and love and positive vibes sent your way, and that's a lot to take in. It's like you are in the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry. Yet you also have to deal with a certain set of criticism and smack talk and people who downgrade your horse and throw insults at your horse. This whole pot of emotions is so intense."

For Chase Chamberlin and Brian Doxtator, the heads of the CMNWLTH horse racing and sports partnership that owns 25% of Mage, it was not their first taste of grade or group 1 success, but it was certainly their most impactful.

"There's no doubt it's life-changing. It wasn't the first time we had a horse on a major stage. Country Grammer has taken us all over the world and won the Dubai World Cup (G1) but there's something about the Kentucky Derby that is especially surreal," Chamberlin said. "There were a lot of waterworks, tears, when we won the Dubai World Cup, but I was stupefied after the Derby. And not because I didn't think Mage had a great shot. It was because you don't ever go into the Derby thinking you are going to win."

Sterling Racing's Sam Herzberg, who owns a commercial real estate business in south Florida, put it quite simply.

"It's magical," he said.

The magic that transformed the lives of the Delgados and the OGMA, Restrepo, CMNWLTH, and Sterling ownership group will be revived Saturday at Monmouth when Mage returns to the races for the first time since a slow pace led to a third-place finish in the Preakness Stakes (G1) that crushed the group's hopes for a Triple Crown sweep.

While the Haskell, as a springboard to the Aug. 26 Travers at Saratoga Race Course, will play a crucial role in positioning Mage for a serious run at the 3-year-old male Eclipse Award, it will also redirect attention on Mage's racing career.

Not that anyone has minded any of the outside fanfare that was born on the first Saturday in May 2023.

"In the best way possible it's been exhausting and I say that with the biggest smile on my face that I can," Chamberlin said.

Aside from attracting the attention of national media and seven breeding farms in Kentucky and two in Japan interested in Mage's stallion career, such a huge victory by relatively small connections is surely the stuff that Hollywood covets and which keeps Restrepo's phone buzzing incessantly.

"From both a personal and professional standpoint there has been a huge uptick of activity. Things happen at Star Wars warp speed. So many things come at you," Restrepo said. "We have interest from a Netflix series, documentaries, podcasts, and people wanting to hear the story. There's a lot of attention and a lot of coverage."

Helping to sell the story was the way the connections handled the new experience of being media magnets with extreme class both in the days before the Preakness and after a frustrating loss.

"All of a sudden we were the center of attention at the Preakness," Restrepo said. "There's this onslaught of eyeballs and attention that comes your way. The world is upside down after we were a longshot at the Kentucky Derby. Everyone is expecting you to win the Preakness because everyone wants to see a Triple Crown winner.

"There's rows of cameras and attention you are not used to when you go to the barn. There are responsibilities and you have to deal with questions about the sport that are above your paygrade. But you have to answer them and be cognizant of everything you say and how you represent the sport. You are responsible for showing the world how much we care about horses and the pride we have in our sport. Anything you do is magnified. How he breezed, how he ate, how he got up. You are not used to that, but you have to navigate it."

For the Delgados and Restrepo, the Derby put a spotlight on their keen work at sales and in developing young equine talent into productive runners and reminded people that the elder Delgado was a superior horseman who had trained Triple Crown winners in Venezuela. Already that newfound fame has attracted some new owners to the fold.

"There's been a lot of interest in buying horses with us and wanting to be partners with us going into the sales," the younger Delgado said.

Restrepo understands that financial firepower is the name of the game for a bloodstock agent. For years, he would pinpoint talent at sales, only to see the prices quickly elevate beyond his budget.

Yet since May 6 that has begun to change. After spending no more than $25,000 for the first handful of OGMA buys in 2020, a year later the topper among five purchases was the $290,000 for Mage out of the Sequel Bloodstock consignment. Now, this year, Restrepo and his Marquee Bloodstock operation have already attracted new backers and made three sales purchases of at least $300,000 for horses that will be trained by Delgado.

He bought a $300,000 Into Mischief   colt out of the Successful Appeal mare Song to the Moon at the Midlantic sale, a $375,000 colt out of the Scat Daddy mare Epic Scataway from the last crop of Arrogate at the OBS June Sale of 2-Year-Olds in Training, and went to $320,561 for a 3-year-old son of U S Navy Flag  named Ocean Vision  at the Goffs London sale who is expected to run in the Aug. 4 National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame Stakes (G2T) at Saratoga Race Course.

"When you are a bloodstock agent and you don't have the capital behind you, you are just playing fantasy football," Restrepo said. "You're just watching and I did that for several years."

Business has also been booming for CMNWLTH, an app which offers microshares in horses and athletes..

"We tripled our user base almost overnight to about 20,000 from around less than 7,000," Chamberlin said. "To see those kind of numbers and outreach is incredible."

CMNWLTH has nearly 400 investors in Mage, who paid $50 a share. Chamberlin said the payoff just for the Kentucky Derby win and the third in the Preakness will amount to about $103, with more to come from races like the Haskell and eventually a stud deal. Yet there's little doubt the experience of having a share of a Kentucky Derby winner was akin to a seven-figure payoff for the partners.

"It was cool to see what happened for our users. So many people in this sport don't get time in the spotlight and it was nice to shine it on them and get their names in headlines in their local media," Chamberlin said.

Herzberg grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., and would play the races at Aqueduct Racetrack and Belmont Park, hoping that he could one day be a part of the sport. After his first chance at a Kentucky Derby start was erased when Black Onyx  was scratched the day before the 2013 Run for the Roses, Mage brought him the kind of joy he always hoped to find in racing.

"It's such a life-changing experience," the 72-year-old Florida resident said. "It's like winning Wimbledon. You will always be a part of history."

For Restrepo, the emotional rewards have been, what he labels, "priceless."

He takes tremendous pride in the inspiration he has given the sport's many Hispanic participants, showing how they can find success at the top level of the sport. He also will never forget the joy experienced by the older members of his family, which has been involved in racing for four generations.

On the walkover from the barns to the paddock for the Derby, he brought along his two uncles, longtime backstretch workers whose involvement in the sport date back to work for trainers like Lucien Laurin and Secretariat, and his mother.

"We were written off in the Derby and I didn't care. I wanted to fulfill a family dream but you can never force those things to happen. You can't say I have to be in the Derby. You have to let it happen organically. So when we qualified for the Kentucky Derby (by finishing second) in the Florida Derby (G1), I was so happy. My grandfather was not alive but I could say the kid, and his only grandchild in racing, did it for his 77- and 82-year-old sons," Restrepo said. "Being able to honor that dream and have my mom and her two brothers in the walkover, I couldn't help thinking about the blood, sweat, tears, and sacrifices they put into the sport."

If there was one sure sign of how the Kentucky Derby impacted the group it could be found when the horses were being saddled at the Preakness. There was a buzz of activity and excitement on the Pimlico Race Course turf course, but when the time came for riders to take their mounts, the younger Delgado stood, holding Mage close to him and slowly petting his neck with a calm, impassioned look that belied everything that was at stake in the second jewel of the Triple Crown.

"I was feeling so proud and happy, especially for the horse," he said. "He was so deserving of winning the Derby and had done everything we could ask of him. All I wanted to do in that moment was to transmit to him that he should be calm."

And why not? Clearly, what Mage accomplished two weeks earlier at Churchill Downs had fulfilled enough dreams for a lifetime.