LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Brian Hernandez Jr. will need a minute to digest his signature victory in the 150th Kentucky Derby.
Maybe even more time since the milestone derby capped the best weekend of a jockey career spent mostly under the radar.
The Louisiana native rode Mystik Dan to an epic win Saturday at Churchill Downs, sliding past favorite Fierceness along the rail at the final turn and holding off Sierra Leone and Forever Young by a nose in an epic three-horse photo finish. Hernandez wasn’t even sure he had won until seeing the replay and keeping his eyes glued to the flat screen that showed the continuous loop.
“I’m like, woo, I think we just won the Kentucky Derby,” the 38-year-old said. “But then those horses, they were so far out there, you couldn’t really see them. And then they surged so quickly.
“I was like, ‘Oh man, I hope we won. I hope we won.’ And then when they hung up our number, it was just instant relief.”