When Larry Roth returned to his Long Island home last May, from Louisville, he unpacked a pair of muddy boots and declared he would never clean them again. He and his family had bought cheap ponchos and galoshes at a Walmart the night before the Kentucky Derby, bracing for a sloppy Saturday at Churchill Downs. And the rains came as expected, soaking the masses in their finery, rendering the track a gooey mess. “It was a miserable day,” says Roth.
But when the 65-to-1 long shot colt that Roth co-owned, Country House, was named the most controversial winner in the 145-year history of the Derby, that mud took on a magical quality.