DID SHE HAVE ANY BUSINESS BEING THERE?: The Story of Winning Colours, the Bet Nobody Believed, and the Race That Changed Everything

In 1988, a grey roan filly walked into the Kentucky Derby and refused to leave the front of the race for a single stride of a mile and a quarter.She had no business being there. That was the consensus. She was a filly in a colt's race, a front-runner in a distance race that history said would punish her for going to the lead too early, trained by a man who had tried and failed to win the Kentucky Derby twelve times, and owned by a former football team owner who had only been in horse racing for six years. The odds at one Las Vegas sports book were 100-to-1.The men who worked her barn knew better. They had been with her every morning, before the cameras and the clockers arrived, and they had seen what she did when another horse drew alongside her: she accelerated. They drove to Las Vegas and put their own money down.Did She Have Any Business Being There? is the complete story of Winning Colours, the 1988 Kentucky Derby winner, and the remarkable collision of ambitions that produced one of the most unlikely victories in the history of American sport.It is the story of Eugene Klein, the kid from the Bronx who became a World War II bomber pilot, built a car dealership empire in California, purchased the San Diego Chargers for a record $10 million in 1966, assembled Dan Fouts and Kellen Winslow and Charlie Joiner into one of the most celebrated offenses in NFL history, sold the team, and then decided that what he really wanted was a horse that could win the Kentucky Derby before he died.It is the story of D. Wayne Lukas, the high school basketball coach from Wisconsin who walked into the thoroughbred racing world in 1978, announced that he was going to dominate it, and spent seven years winning everything except the one race that mattered most. He was 0 for 12 in Kentucky Derby starters when Winning Colours came into his barn. He needed her as much as she needed him.And it is the story of the horse herself: big, grey, and certain about where she belonged. Not second. Not third. Not tracked and caught in the stretch. First. Always first.On May 7, 1988, she proved it to 137,694 people at Churchill Downs.This book goes beyond race. It follows Winning Colours through the Preakness, where a compressed schedule and a fresher rival took the second leg away. It follows her to the 1988 Breeders' Cup Distaff, where she led by a length in the final fifty yards and was beaten by a nose in one of the most celebrated finishes in the sport's history. It tells the full story of Personal Ensign, the mare with a perfect record who needed every stride she had to hold on.And it returns, at the end, to Las Vegas. To the men who drove there in January 1988 with their own money and a conviction the world didn't share yet. To the window. To the ticket. To the morning after the Derby, when 100-to-1 meant something real.Since Winning Colours crossed the wire at Churchill Downs in 1988, no filly has won the Kentucky Derby.That fact grows more remarkable every May.This is the story of how it happened, and what it cost, and what it means.Perfect for fans of Seabiscuit, American Pharaoh, and the golden age of American thoroughbred racing. Read more