Oregon Ping
Please notify me via FReepmail if you would like to be added to or taken off the Oregon Ping List.
Posted on 05/06/2006 11:32:50 AM PDT by ex-Texan
EAGLE POINT Remember when you were a kid and your parents told you, "If you want to get to know something really well, what you need to do is spend lots of time hanging around it"?
Wrong.
Kids, I'm here to tell you that if you really want to get to know a race horse named Brother Derek, Saturday's Kentucky Derby favorite, what you must do is meet with the Oregon rancher who bred and raised him, and stand around listening to stories about bull testicles.
Before Brother Derek was given his registered name, he was called "Randall" at Gavel Ranch, a 200-acre spread a dozen miles north of Medford.
"My kids named him after the character in Monsters Inc." said Cris Caldwell, who along with his mother oversees this remote ranch with a growing reputation.
Laurel and Alden, ages 8 and 11, live on the farm with their father and grandmother, Mary. They're in charge of carrying the testicle buckets and iodine during calf castration. Also, they used to feed Brother Derek carrots and braid his mane and tail. And the horse that will run at Churchill Downs this week also had a stablemate named Pete that he used to chase around the pasture.
"You'd look out there and they'd be up on their hind legs, rearing up at each other," said Mary, who bought the ranch in 1979 with her late husband, and well-known livestock auctioneer, Tom Caldwell. "They'd be biting, and pawing, and you just close your eyes. They're like children; you have to let them scrape their knees."
Cris Caldwell discussed Brother Derek while standing near a wooden barn with five 12-by-15 stalls. The floors are dirt. The roof is made of steel panels. There is a 25-acre fenced pasture around the barn, covered by grass and pussy willows. The Caldwells use old horseshoes welded to chains as latches.
It's so quiet here that you expect Caldwell to point at the two eagles circling above and shout, "Hey . . . you two bozos . . . keep it down up there!"
This is where Brother Derek, now a 3-year-old, spent the first year of his life. It's where he was weaned from his mother, Miss Soft Sell, an 11-year-old, speckled-gray mare with great muscles and a pair of slightly bowed front legs.
The ranch has 150 cattle, utilized mostly to keep the grass cut. And there are two young fillies in one pasture, and farther away, there are seven quarter-horses used for riding around the property. And there are a half-dozen herding dogs, which come scrambling into the back of Cris' dual-wheeled pickup truck when he whistles and shouts, "Come on dogs, git in the truck!"
Still, what strikes you most about the place where Brother Derek grew up is the silence. Because when you close your eyes, and listen, you can not make out a single discernible sound.
No jet planes. No sirens. No automobiles. Nothing. Not even the wind. And it's then that you realize how far away from Churchill Downs this really is, and also, what 140,000 erupting spectators might sound like to a horse when the gates are opened and Brother Derek is let loose on that one-mile oval track.
It began here in silence.
It somehow ended up there, in Louisville, Kentucky, with the entire country watching.
"There's so many ups and downs in this industry," Cris said. "The Derby is the good part. But what you don't hear about is the foal who struggles to live after it's born, and the way a horse can turn a hoof in a workout, or have something awful happen; there's just so many variables."
Now, he's talking about Brother Derek's two younger siblings, both colts.
In 2004, there was a foal born with a congenital problem. It died. And in 2005, a sibling of Brother Derek was in the pasture and inexplicably bolted and ran itself into a fence, causing damage to its vertebrae. It had to be put down.
Said Mary: "You wean them from their mom and they're so gangly. They go through this really awkward stage. Then, all of a sudden, one day you look at them, and -- oh my gosh -- they've just blossomed."
There are 40,000 thoroughbred foals born each year. No more than 20 of them will reach the Kentucky Derby, with an opportunity to win the first leg of the Triple Crown. Brother Derek, with more winnings than any other horse in the field, is the early favorite at 3-1.
The Caldwell family bred and raised Brother Derek, then sold him at auction two years ago for $150,000 to John Brocklebank of Utah. Last year, Cecil Peacock bought the horse at another auction for $275,000. And since that time, Brother Derek has earned more than $1.1 million, including a victory in the Santa Anita Derby.
In the industry, Miss Soft Sell is now called a "producer." She has attracted a frenzy of interest from prospective buyers. And if Tom Caldwell were alive, there's a chance she'd have already been sold. As Mary likes to tell people, "He was an auctioneer; he always said, 'The only things not for sale are the wife and kids.' "
The family says Miss Soft Sell isn't for sale. But there are plans to sell her latest foal, a filly born last week in California, in a year. That price will fluctuate wildly, hinging on Brother Derek's Derby performance.
Also, if you think success hasn't changed things around the ranch, you should know Miss Soft Sell will first be flown to Kentucky to be bred, then back to Gavel Ranch. Three years ago, the mare and Brother Derek, born in California, made the trip home in a trailer on Interstate 5.
"It's a bigger investment now," Cris said. "You take precautions."
Mary left for Kentucky on Thursday with her two sons, Cris and Scott, both auctioneers, like their father. Her two daughters, Georganna Happell and Karen Hammonds, are making the trip as well. They'll pick out new hats, and sip mint juleps, and root for Brother Derek. They'll be wined and dined by other top breeders hoping to pair their stallion with Miss Soft Sell.
Meanwhile, a furniture store in Eagle Point is centering its Grand Opening around the Kentucky Derby because of the Caldwell connection. And another family friend who owns a retail store down the road dropped in to tell Cris, "We just got cable television put in at the store so we can watch Saturday's race."
Until then, it's all quiet here.
And Brother Derek knows what I'm talking about.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1627849/posts
I urge all Freepers to bet on their favorite horse!
*Ping*!
Oregon Ping
Please notify me via FReepmail if you would like to be added to or taken off the Oregon Ping List.
He'll be a good one to watch.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.