LOUISVILLE - Part-owner Joe Lero was anything but impressed when he met trainer Tim Ritchey to hear his plans for Afleet Alex, Cash is King Stable's first horse.
"I said to [managing partner] Chuck [Zacney], 'Who is this guy? I think he's crazy,'●" he said.
Crazy like a fox. Afleet Alex is the 9-2 second choice for the 131st Kentucky Derby tomorrow behind 5-2 Bellamy Road.
"I thought he was a fruitcake," Lero said. "I'm here, so I hope he can take me a little bit further."
Still, it's easy to see why Lero questioned Ritchey's sanity at that dinner meeting last summer.
The scenario he laid out was awfully ambitious for a $75,000, 2-year-old-in-training purchase - especially one who had been bottle-fed by two little girls the first 12 days of his life because
his mare couldn't nurse. And all that was besides the fact that Afleet Alex had raced just twice, both times at out-of-the-limelight Delaware Park. He broke his maiden in June and took an allowance race in July.
Nevertheless, Ritchey said that in his third start the colt would face the best of the East at Saratoga in upstate New York, by making his stakes debut in the Sanford, a Grade 2 event July 29. They would stick around for the Grade 1 Hopeful on Aug. 21, then travel to Belmont Park on Long Island in October for the Grade 1 Champagne. Finally, if all went well, the $1 million Breeders' Cup Juvenile was the possible season finale.
By the time the Oct. 30 Juvenile rolled around at Lone Star Park in Texas, Ritchey had firmly established he was very much in charge of his faculties.
Afleet Alex won the Sanford by 5 1/4 lengths, and the Hopeful by a neck.
He got beat a half-length by Proud Accolade in the Champagne. In the Juvenile, he was second by three-quarters of a length to Wilko.
Afleet Alex was voted runner-up for the Eclipse Award 2-year-old championship.
His fairy-tale roll to prominence - much like those of Funny Cide's and Smarty Jones' the past two Derbies - has captured the attention of even non-racing fans.
Contributing to the affection are two other compelling chapters. One is about the way he fought back this spring from a lung infection, which ruined his race in the Rebel Stakes, to romp to an eight-length triumph in the Arkansas Derby, his springboard to Louisville. The other is how the colt brings money to a children's cancer research foundation through Alex's Lemonade Stand.
Zacney donates part of the proceeds from Afleet Alex's earnings, and profits from the sales of T-shirts and caps also go to the fund. An Alex Lemonade Stand has been open at times on Churchill Downs' backside, and earlier this week Taylor Made/WinStar, the people who stand the colt's sire, donated the proceeds from a special auction of a season to Northern Afleet.
"Just to have this horse is special," said Ritchey, who lives in Elkton, Md.
The trainer believes that for Afleet Alex, unique among the field in that he goes to the track to train twice a day, that the best is yet to come.
"He's a trier," he said. "If somebody beats him, they're going to have to run to beat him."
He's fast but manageable, willing to rate off the pace. And he's arguably the fittest member of the maximum field of 20 3-year-olds since he's the only one who visits the track twice a day to exercise. Most days he jogs and gallops about 5 miles.
For that reason, Ritchey doesn't worry about the 1 1/4 mile distance of the race, one none of the horses have yet tried in a race.
"It's always been my goal to have him peak physically and mentally the first Saturday in May," Ritchey said.
"I think he'll go two miles," he said.
The Block News Alliance consists of The Blade and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Pohla Smith is a reporter for the Post-Gazette.
First Published May 6, 2005, 11:46 a.m.
