Bryce Miller: Stunning 2019 Kentucky Derby is my most memorable event

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SAN DIEGO — In 2004, Johnny Damon unintentionally destroyed my audio recorder with a clubhouse champagne version of Old Faithful after the Red Sox kicked “The Curse of the Bambino” to the curb by winning the World Series.

In 2017 and ’18, I covered back-to-back Rose Bowls where teams scored 49 and 48 points — and lost. At the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, it was stunning to hear a single human being, Jamaican sprinting blur Usain Bolt, mute a raucous stadium simply by climbing into the starting blocks. Peeling back indelible moments one-on-one with Tom Watson, Lance Armstrong, John Wooden, Meb Keflezighi, Manny Ramirez, Terry Bradshaw and so many more shaped snapshots to last a lifetime.

All those memories of being a sportswriter, though — the unexplainable wins, the unfathomable losses, the simple sanctity of sweat, three decades in all — failed to match the absolute rain-soaked lunacy of last year’s Kentucky Derby.

Maximum Security, owned by Gary and Mary West of Rancho Santa Fe, reached the finish line first. A rider’s objection led to the horse tumbling to 17th, sparking the kind of chaos unseen on a sport’s biggest stage.

A Churchill Downs official sheepishly gathered the garland of roses from Mary West as the group was unceremoniously escorted from racing’s most historic winner’s circle. Meanwhile, a rapt national audience remained glued to the unraveling.

Think of the Padres winning the World Series, only to have Rob Manfred pry the trophy out of the hands of Ron Fowler and Peter Seidler. This, though, was stratospherically more unlikely.

“Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose,” said a staggered Gary West, standing in the home-stretch mud after 65-1 Country House became the most implausible winner in 145 runnings — dating to the presidency of Ulysses S. Grant. “Sometimes you win and you lose, all in the same race.”

The stewards’ review became the most astonishing 22 minutes in racing.

For me, it wasn’t just the what but the how. I had worked for months to reach private and reclusive Gary West to talk about his Derby horses. Game Winner was a prerace favorite for months before Maximum Security, at one point a $16,000 claimer, bolted from the shadows.

I toured West’s life, from working as a pin-setter at his family’s Iowa bowling alley to “kill room” supervisor for $3.25 an hour at a meat-packing plant in Omaha and a door-to-door bill collector.

I explored how the couple built a telecommunications empire that transformed them into billionaire philanthropists who champion health-care hurdles for the elderly. I gingerly tapped into West’s tortured service in Vietnam.

Mega-trainer Bob Baffert, who guided Game Winner, told me that despite their working relationship he knew “almost none” of West’s life until reading the piece. A stubborn curtain had been pulled back, widely.

That relationship led to West allowing me to sit in their trackside owner’s suite before and during the race, something that does not happen. I had to have my credential edited to add the “W” designation that granted access to the area. One Churchill Downs official greeted me from that point on as “The Lone ‘W.’ ”

When the front of the field navigated the mud and muck in front of more than 150,000, I not only knew how West’s camp reacted … I saw it, heard it and felt it.

The eyes of Gary and Mary West reddened at the realization of an almost unreachable mountain summited. Trainer Jason Servis, now under investigation for doping by the Justice Department but then a gritty underdog, bear-hugged brother John, who won the 2004 Derby with Smarty Jones.

It was stage-right access that few if any sports can afford. I still have the video of it all on my phone.

Then, like a slow-motion car accident, the win of a lifetime … well, wasn’t. In a blink, $1.86 million changed hands. In an instant, the far more lucrative breeding rights drifted into the hazy Louisville night. Those who follow the sport, floored.

“It’s kind of like the ‘Wide World of Sports,’ ” said Gary West, after Maximum Security plummeted due to a ruling of interference. “The ecstasy of winning and the agony of defeat, all within a 22-minute period of time.”

It’s also the most memorable event I’ve covered because of what followed.

Stewards spoke to the media without fielding questions as the inevitable whiff of legal action hung in the air. A lawsuit by the Wests pinballs to this day in the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Ohio. West, who politely declined comment this week as the original Derby date loomed Saturday, said his understanding is that COVID-19 ripples have slowed the decision.

The day after the Derby, I randomly pulled into a nondescript place called Bambi Bar because of a gaudy roadside sign boasting it had been “Voted Kentucky’s Best Dive Bar.” Cocktail tables outnumbered customers, where a pour of Elijah Craig bourbon ran $5.50 compared to $15 downtown.

In a cosmic mind-bender, without warning, the Derby’s garland of roses began a slow parade through the front door. The same roses held by Mary West. The same roses reclaimed and handed to others.

I learned the group behind Country House had made this place a regular stop before all their lives changed in the most unimaginable way. So, here came the most unforgettable roses in Kentucky Derby history.

I’ve got that video, too.

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