Rich Strike provides pleasant surprise for Calumet Farm's Keen Ice

The remarkable upset in Saturday's Kentucky Derby was not exclusively the domain of the winning horse, Rich Strike.

A colt who was claimed for just $30,000 last October after a low-key start to his career also represented a stunning turnaround in the prospects of his sire, Keen Ice, as he made an irresistible run up the rail under Sonny Leon.

The Calumet Farm resident has now achieved a Classic victory from his very first crop, upstaging more lauded young bucks, having not even managed a Graded or black type winner of any kind aside from one strike in Puerto Rico before this occasion.

Keen Ice was perhaps best known for gatecrashing himself, being the sole horse to inflict defeat upon the brilliant American Pharoah during his three-year-old career when he reeled in the Triple Crown champion in the final stages of the Travers Stakes at Saratoga.

A hard-knocker for Todd Pletcher who was bought for $120,000 as a yearling from Keeneland by his owners Donegal Racing, the son of Curlin had been a similar kind of longshot to his heir when entering the 2015 Derby with only a minor win to his name.

Keen Ice was seventh at Churchill Downs, beaten almost nine lengths but improved his position with third in the Belmont and second in the Haskell - both behind American Pharoah again - before his day in the sun.

He would lock horns with several more stars of a fine age, including when finishing behind both California Chrome and Arrogate in the Dubai World Cup. The latter, now deceased, also claimed a first Classic victory from the female division on Friday when Secret Oath clinched the Kentucky Oaks.

Also the winner of the Grade 2 Suburban Handicap at Belmont with a string of Grade 1 places, Keen Ice was ruled out of a third crack at the Breeders' Cup Classic in 2017 and retired to historic Calumet.

Introduced at a $20,000 fee, he covered 176 mares in his maiden season and reached 2021 with one of the very largest crops among the freshman intake.

Keen Ice sired plenty of juvenile winners and has had half a dozen black type performers so far but delivered no real stand-outs, leaving him tenth on the list by earnings and some way adrift of the breakout star Gun Runner and the likes of Practical Joke and Connect. His fee for this year had contracted to $7,500, still the joint highest on a roster of 15.

Calumet Farm bred Rich Strike and also owned him prior to his claiming race victory at Churchill last September, after which time he moved to owner Richard Dawson's RED TR-Racing and trainer Eric Reed.

An operation founded in 1924 by the Wright family and run for many years by the heirs to a baking powder empire before it passed into other hands, Calumet had already been easily the leading breeder on the Derby honours board. The Lexington nursery produced nine others since the triumph of another Triple Crown winner, Whirlaway, in 1941, including the legendary Citation seven years later with the most recent having been Strike The Gold in 1991.

It is currently in the hands of businessman Brad Kelley and fielded the unplaced Happy Jack in its colours in the same race.

Rich Strike is inbred 3x2 to the Canadian-reared champion North American sire Smart Strike, a son of Mr Prospector responsible for producing Curlin, who in turn fathered Keen Ice.

There is very useful Canadian blood on the colt's distaff side. His dam is Gold Strike, the Canadian three-year-old champion filly of her intake who landed the Grade 3 Selene Stakes. Smart Strike was coincidentally also the broodmare sire of Mine That Bird, who took the 2009 Derby at similarly monumental odds.

Gold Strike's second foal turned out to be Llanarmon, who won the Grade 2 Natalma Stakes as a juvenile. Michael Byrne of Park Stud in Ontario would then offer the broodmare at Keeneland in 2015, where she sold to Calumet for $230,000.

Unfortunately Gold Strike's breeding record has been patchy prior to Rich Strike's emergence and after he had been born in 2019, she was covered by Ransom The Moon and again offered at Keeneland aged 17, being bought for just $1,700 by owner-breeder Tommy Wente.

With Rich Strike not even an intended runner in the race until he sneaked in at the deadline, others will have been in for a pleasant surprise when considering the page update.

His Oxbow-sired sister, My Blonde Mary, had been available for very little on the claiming circuit at Tampa Bay Downs and another unraced sister by Sky Mesa now looks very well bought at auction.

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