Tall Tales of the Track, Kentucky Derby Edition: Taking a (Long) Shot at Roses

Each year, the road to the Kentucky Derby highlights the stories of those who dream of roses, new faces or established favorites alike in pursuit of dancing the big dance. Whether their horse is the morning-line favorite or a longshot in post 17, the chance to be in the gate on the first Saturday in May is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be a part of an American sporting tradition. Derby fever, though, can lead to a questionable decision or two.

Though the early list for the 1972 Kentucky Derby featured names like Riva Ridge and No Le Hace, as the race grew closer, a maiden named One Eyed Tom grew closer to making his owner’s Derby dreams come true. However, to make his shot at rosy glory a reality, the gelding needed to pass one very important test: the gate test. 

Taking Chances

Michael Hines was a man who liked to take a chance. The Indiana native had played football under coach Mike Leahy at Notre Dame before enlisting in the Marines during World War II. Once his service to his country was done, Hines returned to Notre Dame to pursue his law degree and then moved to a growing Las Vegas, Nevada, to practice. There, he met John Kell Housells, who was one of the area’s earliest casino operators and had parlayed his fortune into breeding and campaigning Thoroughbreds. Thanks to Housells’s influence, Hines became involved with the sport, even rising to head of the Nevada Racing Commission. 

In addition to practicing law, Hines also bred, broke, and trained horses on his ranch near Las Vegas. He mostly raced on the region’s bush tracks but aspired to compete at Santa Anita and other sanctioned racetracks, his ultimate goal the Kentucky Derby. In 1968, with those goals in place, he bred his mare Vegas Biscuit, a great-granddaughter of Seabiscuit, to Mr. Busher, a full brother to the Hall of Fame mare Busher, and in 1969 got “an ugly foal [whose] hind legs bowed in and rapped each other with every step.”

Frustrated with the new addition, Hines asked Wes DeGarmo, one of his ranch hands, to shoot the young horse, but DeGarmo could not do it. Instead, he turned the colt out in a pasture, out of sight and out of mind, where Vegas Biscuit’s foal outgrew his awkward hind legs and survived a run-in with a branch that left him with a clouded eye. Despite his misfortunes, the young gelding showed promise, so Hines registered him with the Jockey Club. Named One Eyed Tom, he was broken to saddle and prepared for his two-year-old debut. 

Giving It His Best Shot

Mike Hines was betting on One Eyed Tom as a future stakes prospect, but first he needed to get some experience into the son of Mr. Busher. However, roadblocks kept springing up in his path: first recurring injuries meant interrupted training, and then, when Hines tapped the Agua Caliente Futurity for the gelding’s first start, the track’s grandstand burned down, and the race was canceled. By the beginning of 1972, One Eyed Tom was limited to training on the ranch’s half-mile track. That, however, did not deter Hines from taking a chance. He paid $100 to enter his unraced gelding in the 1972 Kentucky Derby and made plans to send One Eyed Tom east for his chance at Derby glory.

The only problem was, One Eyed Tom still had not raced. He had trialed in California the year before as he prepared for his scrapped first start, which gave the gelding some experience breaking from a starting gate. Yet One Eyed Tom lacked the same seasoning as Riva Ridge and No Le Hace, which potentially made him a safety risk to other horses. Hines shipped him to Churchill Downs the Saturday before the Derby, with the intent of racing him in either the Derby Trial or an allowance race that Tuesday. Before he could start in either, One Eyed Tom needed to get his gate card.

To earn a gate card, which signifies that a horse has sufficient experience to handle breaking from the starting gate, the horse must enter the stall, stand, and then break properly. That Monday, five days before the Derby, Hines boosted exercise rider Eddie Rogers into the saddle and watched as One Eyed Tom took his test. The first two times, the bell rang, the doors sprung open, and One Eyed Tom lumbered out and immediately took a U-turn toward the gate. Hines called for blinkers and added them to the gelding’s equipment. Maybe that would do the trick. 

One Eyed Tom entered the stall, stood, and then when the doors flew open again, he went in the right direction but at a walk rather than a sprint. The next two attempts saw more of the same. Observers shook their heads. Hines sighed. “He worked from the gate last year at a ranch in California,” the breeder/owner/trainer told journalists. “He was not a problem then.” 

Mike Hines, who had already nominated horses to the big race twice before, was undeterred by the setback. He knew with more time One Eyed Tom would have had more chances to earn his way into the Kentucky Derby. This lawyer was not afraid to gamble; he professed to being there at Churchill Downs “half for fun and half for hope.” On Thursday of Derby week, though, he called his wife and told her that they would not have a starter that Saturday but at least he had scored the family good seats for the weekend’s special event. 

In the end, One Eyed Tom never did get that first start. As Hines’s youngest son, racing television host and former trainer Nick Hines, shared, his father gave his almost-Derby starter to groom Wes DeGarmo, who made the gelding his personal saddle horse and cared for him for the rest of his life, a happy ending for this erstwhile racer.