Outlined against an orange-pink October sky, the horseman rode again. Juan Leyva, the only exercise rider for perhaps the greatest American racehorse of the 21st century, spurred his mount from a trot into a gallop at the five-eighths pole on the Keeneland Race Course backstretch and was gone.
The sunrise that was painting the eastern sky had not cleared the grandstand, so after a while the only reliable evidence of the steed’s progress was the flickering red safety light on Leyva’s helmet. The light was moving quickly.
“When he comes back around, it will be a holy mackerel moment,” said West Point Thoroughbreds vice president Jeff Lifson, who has been around the horse since his purchase as a yearling in 2019, as he provided narration for the video he was recording on his phone.
