The story has been told before, but bears repeating. It was 4 a.m. and Kenny McPeek had been out celebrating finishing his final class at the University of Kentucky when it suddenly occurred to him he had to get a job.
A friend asked McPeek what he loved. The answer: horse racing. Do that, the friend said, then slapped him on the back and went to bed. McPeek promptly got up off the couch and headed to the barns at Keeneland where he ended up becoming a hotwalker for Shug McGaughey.
The rest, as they say, is history. These many years later, the 59-year-old trainer has won the Belmont Stakes (2002 with Sarava) and the Preakness Stakes (2020 with the filly Swiss Skydiver) but not the Kentucky Derby.
