Team Valor’s 2011 Kentucky
Derby hero Animal Kingdom made his career debut at Arlington last September in a most eventful
manner.
“A lot of different things
happened in that race,” said Equibase’s Arlington
chart caller David Miller Sunday morning at Arlington. “I remember because it took
me 45 minutes just to write the footnote.
“Even in the post parade
before the race, I remember being very impressed with three horses that were in
there,” Miller said. “One was Animal Kingdom (who went on to finish
second after a troubled trip in traffic). Another was Willcox Inn (owned by the
All In Stable, who won that day’s race at his first asking and went on to
finish third in Keeneland’s Grade I Breeders Futurity and Churchill’s Grade II
Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf). The third was (Team Block’s) Mavericking
(subsequently third in Fair Grounds’ $60,000 Grindstone Stakes and then
unplaced behind Kentucky Derby second choice Pants On Fire when that rival won
the Louisiana Derby.)”
Interestingly, two other
recent Kentucky Derby winners who made memorable early appearances at Arlington
Park were Barrington-resident Jim Tafel’s 2007 Derby hero Street Sense, who
broke his maiden at Arlington in his second career start, and the late
Chicagoland owner Russell Reineman’s War Emblem, who won his career bow in
October of 2001 before winning the Run for the Roses in 2002.