Brian Hernandez Jr. went back to his roots to make history in Kentucky Derby 150.
Having drawn Post 3 with Mystik Dan, the 38-year-old jockey broke out the tape of Calvin Borel’s victories riding the rail aboard Mine That Bird in 2009 and Super Saver in 2010.
Hernandez called it a privilege to sit in Borel’s corner as an up-and-coming rider back home in Louisiana. On Saturday, he took a page out of the Hall of Fame rider’s playbook — to “roll the dice” with a rail trip of his own.
The son of Goldencents broke sharply out of the gate with 18-1 odds and made himself at home on the inside, where Borel and his mounts made names for themselves at Churchill Downs.
Hernandez said he was “smiling the whole time,” even when a late surge from Sierra Leone had him questioning whether he had ended his Run for the Roses drought.
“We might have taken out a little bit of the inside fence, but that’s OK,” he joked.
Trainer Kenny McPeek called it “typical Brian” and, most importantly, “the difference (between) winning and losing” in a race that came down to the wire.
“We saved ground, saved ground, saved ground,” McPeek said. “I think we needed all of it.”
Hernandez and Mystik Dan, who covered the 1 1/4 miles in 2:03.34, bested Sierra Leone, with Tyler Gaffalione aboard, by a neck.
Twenty years after graduating high school and beginning his first stint riding at Churchill, Hernandez became just the eighth jockey to hit the Kentucky Oaks/Derby double. On Friday, he rode McPeek’s Thorpedo Anna to a dominant, 4 3/4-length win in the country’s top race for 3-year-old fillies.
The last person to pull off both in a weekend? Borel in 2009.
“It still hasn’t sunk in,” Hernandez said afterward, his eyes darting to the race replay airing on loop on televisions mounted to the walls of the room where a postrace news conference was held.
“I don’t know how long it’s going to take to sink in; but it’s definitely a surreal moment right now.”
A moment so big it meant canceling a 6 a.m. flight to New Orleans for the final day of the Jazz & Heritage Festival.
Mystik Dan improved to 3-1-1 across seven career starts with Saturday’s win. Hernandez has ridden the colt in each of his victories.
The duo was coming off a third-place finish in the Grade 1 Arkansas Derby on March 30 at Oaklawn.
Hernandez said he and McPeek came into the weekend “thinking we had good chances, really big chances.” This is as big as it gets for the 2004 recipient of the Eclipse Award for Outstanding Apprentice Jockey, who won the 2012 Breeders’ Cup Classic with Fort Larned.
Hernandez made his Derby debut in 2016, when he placed 12th with Tom’s Ready. Until Saturday, his best finish was eighth in 2017 with McCraken.
He and McPeek have teamed up for each of his past three starts in the Run for the Roses. They placed ninth in 2021 with Tiz the Bomb and 11th last year with Sun Thunder.
What keeps them coming back to the other?
McPeek said there’s “nothing complicated” about dealing with Hernandez and his agent, Frank Bernis. And rarely does he second-guess the jockey’s moves.
“I have rarely come back and said, ‘That was horrible,'” said McPeek; for whom Hernandez ended an 0-for-10 Derby drought and made just the third trainer (and the first since 1952) to hit the Oaks/Derby double.
Hernandez loves the freedom McPeek gives him. That was the case Saturday; and there was nothing horrible about it.
Except for waiting for the results to be made official.
“That was the longest two minutes in sports,” Hernandez said.
Reach Louisville men’s basketball reporter Brooks Holton at bholton@gannett.com and follow him on X at @brooksHolton.
This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Jockey Brian Hernandez wins Kentucky Derby 2024 aboard Mystik Dan
