By Bob Markus

What's in a name? That is the question. Having, quite neatly I think, tied together two Shakesperian soliloquys by two different characters from two different plays, I have to admit I don't know the answer. I've spent the last three days wondering what in the world his owners were thinking of when they named the 2009 Kentucky Derby winner "Mine That Bird." Surely, had they known their horse was going to become world famous one day, they'd have named it something a little more fathomable. But who knew? Certainly if you or I had any inkling that Mine That Bird was going to win the Kentucky Derby we'd have at the very least put a couple of bucks on his nose.

Most race horses' names are pretty easy to figure out. You just look at the names of the sire and the dam and find a combination that makes sense. War Admiral was the son of Man 'O War, for instance. Granted that naming a foal of Birdstone-Mining My Own is a bit of a challenge, surely they could have come up with something that makes sense. Something like Birdsong. Or Stone Mountain. Or Etched in Stone. Or Bye Bye Birdie. Or even Charlie Parker. (You jazz fans will get that one, I'm sure)

But Mine That Bird? What could it possibly mean? The only thing that springs to mind is that it is a command to send a canary into a coal mine in order to detect any toxic particles in the air. When the canary stops singing, the miners had better be looking for the fastest way out.

Mine That Bird's jockey, Calvin Borel, certainly was looking for the fastest way out when he found himself trailing the entire 19-horse field at the head of the stretch. He found it where he usually does, on the rail, and he produced one of the most astonishing finishing kicks in the history of horse racing. I'm not a racing expert. During my 36 years writing sports for the Chicago Tribune I probably covered a dozen or fewer horse races. A couple of Kentucky Derbies, one Preakness, a few Florida spring races and a handful of major stakes at Arlington Park. But it doesn't take an expert to know that what we saw Saturday was something extraordinary.

I watched the race with some friends who live downstairs from us in a condominium apartment. The scratching of I Want Revenge, the prerace favorite, had made an already cloudy picture almost unreadable, not to mention that it screwed up a lot of Derby pools. So there we were watching some horse with no name leading from the start to the head of the stretch when out of the corner of my eye I saw a blur streaking through an opening no larger than a broom closet door and passing horses left and left. It was as if Jeeves the Butler had opened the door and held it ajar for a visitor. I knew immediately that the race was over and tried to yell, "look at that horse on the rail," but by that time everyone in the room knew the horse was going to win. What none of us knew was the name of the horse.

Ebullient jockey Calvin Borel, who had won two years earlier in almost identical fashion with Street Sense, said what must have been obvious to anyone who watched the second biggest upset in Kentucky Derby history. "At the end, mine was the only horse still running," he said. Mine That Bird is a small horse as race horses go and that, explained Corel, was why he was able to glide through such a narrow opening. "He's such a small horse," Corel added, "that he just skipped along the track where I thought some of the other horses were digging into it."

The unexpected victory by the little horse that could sent racing writers, who had completely ignored Mine That Bird in the week preceding the race, scrambling for information and what they found made a pretty good yarn. The horse had been purchased for $9,500 at a yearling sale. His only two races as a 3-year-old had been run in New Mexico and he hadn't won either of them. His trainer, Benny "Chip" Woolley, had driven the gelding in a pickup truck all the way from New Mexico to Louisville, a 21-hour journey. Woolley looked as if he'd inherited his wardrobe from Johnny Cash and, after answering a few questions for a TV interviewer, stomped off the way that other Man in Black, Dale Earnhardt, once did when I asked him a question he thought was stupid.

It all made for a good story, but it was not the whole truth and nothing but the truth. True, the horse was sold as a yerling for $9,500, but the man who bought him won four races and more than $300,000 racing him in Canada, where he was proclaimed 2-year-old champion. That owner then sold him for $400,000 to two men from Roswell, N. M. The new owners entered him in the Breeder's Cup Juvenile, where he rewarded them by finishing 12th in a 12-horse field. Then came the two losses at Sunland Park, N.M. So, obviously, there was nothing to do but enter him in the most famous race in the world. It will be interesting to see what the betting odds will be at The Preakness, where the Kentucky Derby winner usually is among the favorites
and often is regarded as a potential Triple Crown winner. Mine That Bird a Triple Crown winner? Not likely. The name doesn't resonate like Whirlaway or Citation. Yet Mine That Bird's 6 3/4 length was the largest margin in the Kentucky Derby since Assault in 1946. Assault later became the seventh Triple Crown winner. So go ahead. Take a chance. Put a few bucks on the Derby winner to capture the Preakness and Belmont, too. Maybe that's the way to mine that Bird.