What’s Not to Love About Alex?
Media Life correspondent Toni Fitzgerald predicted Monday that TV ratings for the Kentucky Derby would be way down this year without a heart-tugging favorite like Smarty Jones grabbing the public’s attention.
Toni, meet Afleet Alex.
The scrappy colt — rejected by his mother, handfed by a cute little girl with a Coors Light bottle, owned by a gang of Philadelphia friends who are going to the Derby with the very first horse they bought — is poised to become America’s horse. By Saturday, I’d guess even the most casual of racing fans will know his name, if the recent media coverage he and his connections are garnering is anything to go by.
Just today, the New York Times offers Alex’s bio (complete with photo of cute little girl feeding cute little foal), and a profile of his enthusiastic young rider Jeremy Rose; Dick Jerardi, who wrote about Cash Is King Stable and trainer Tim Ritchey last week, has a touching piece on one of the owners, Jen Reeves, in the Philadelphia Daily News; New York Daily News racing columnist Sherry Ross tries to resist Alex’s charms, but she can’t help melting a little at his story too; and the Courier-Journal talks to Alex’s breeder, John Silvertand, who’s fighting colon cancer. “Afleet Alex, the Kentucky Derby hopeful he bred, is helping him hang on.” Finally, Jay Privman wonders: “Might another Philadelphia story be written this year?”
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