Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Saturday Morning News

Interview With Jim Squires

Aired May 04, 2002 - 07:50   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, it's Derby Day. The 128th running of the Kentucky Derby takes place at Churchill Downs. Some of the world's fastest 3-year-olds will make a run for the roses. And joining me from -- where else? -- Churchill Downs is horse breeder Jim Squires. He's the author of Horse of a Different Color: A Tale of Breeding Geniuses, Dominant Females, and the Fastest Derby Winner Since Secretariat. Jim has been breeding and racing horses in Kentucky for the past decade. Jim, good to see you.

JIM SQUIRES, HORSE BREEDER/AUTHOR: Good morning, Miles.

O'BRIEN: First of all, before we get to the book -- and we will get to the book, don't worry. Just give us a sense of the mood there right now, and who the odds-on favorite is. It's not like there's one horse that's really standing out here.

SQUIRES: No, it's very difficult to find an odds-on favorite today. Everybody has their own favorite, and it's going to be a wonderful Kentucky Derby for that reason.

Generally, there are four or five horses that everybody thinks will win, and so the odds are low on those and you don't get much of a bet. I suspect today that there are going to be ten horses that have a chance to win this race. No one knows which ten it is, so it's going to be a good day.

O'BRIEN: Well that makes for exciting racing, doesn't it?

SQUIRES: Well it does. It does. There's a sort of a -- a couple of home-town favorites. Harlan's Holiday is an Ohio-bred horse, and Perfect Drift trains close by -- so they are the Kentucky favorites, I think. And, then there are some New York horses that are very impressive. We've got some international invaders who are supposed to be very, very good -- one from Dubai, and two from Ireland. So, it's quite an event today. It's going to be a great Kentucky Derby.

O'BRIEN: We do have a late scratch, I'm seeing. Buddha is out?

SQUIRES: Buddha is out. Buddha was a very impressive horse who won the Wooden Memorial and was really the wise guys favorites -- the wise guys are the people who are out here every morning like I am watching these horses walk across this dirt as if it's going to tell us how they're going to run across it today. O'BRIEN: Rub its belly and it runs like crazy, right? All right, let's talk about your book for a minute. It's not fiction, it's non-fiction -- as a matter of fact, it's your story.

SQUIRES: Oh, it's the greatest story ever told...

O'BRIEN: There you go.

SQUIRES: It's supplanting the Bible at my house. (Laughs).

O'BRIEN: In your humble estimation, give us the thumbnail on what you talk about there.

SQUIRES: Oh, this is the day that the -- this smile was permanently etched on my face, right here on these grounds, when a great colt that was born on my farm won this race last year in the second fastest time in history and put me in a little spot in history that every horse breeder in the world wants to be in. One of the 127 breeders with a Kentucky Derby winner.

O'BRIEN: And, say the horse's name and pronounce it right, because I always get it wrong.

SQUIRES: Monarchos.

O'BRIEN: It is Monarchos. We had a lot of debate over that. Monarchos...whatever the case may be -- which was a very fast win, and through the course of getting the horses together that made all this happen, what did you learn the most?

SQUIRES: Well, I have learned something I already suspected -- that I've got to be one of the luckiest men in the world. This is catching lightning in the bottle, and there's no way you can buy one of these horses or breed one -- they just show up.

And Monarchos showed up on my farm on my third breeding crop, and he ended up in wonderful hands that got him to this most difficult race. So I -- what I have learned is that I cannot be any luckier than I was this time last year.

O'BRIEN: Tell us -- there was an interesting piece in the New York Times this week I bet you saw. They were talking about how there are no real superstars any more, and that what happens is, these very well-bred thoroughbreds do their run, and it's actually much more valuable to their owners to put them to stud than to keep them racing. Is that hurting the sport of horse racing?

SQUIRES: Well I think it is. I think you are seeing a return of some sportsman-owners who like to keep their horses on the track as long as they can. It's not necessarily the need to sell the horse and get the money. It's the fact that the horses do not physically hold up, and do not seem to be able to run as long.

O'BRIEN: Why not, what's happening? Are they over bred?

SQUIRES: Well I think -- I think that perhaps over the last 20 or 25 years we have bred horses for speed more than we have bred horses for endurance and durability. And there are a couple of bloodlines that we have continued to cross on each other over the last two or three decades that I think has bred some unsoundness into the horses. So, it's a combination of the fact that the horses are so valuable once they go to stud, and the fact that they don't have as good a confirmation and as strong a bones as perhaps they used to have in the days of Citation and even as late as Secretariat.

O'BRIEN: It's a bit of a Catch-22 to get out of a situation like that because if you bred a horse for the long run, it's not going to win the big purses.

SQUIRES: Well the emphasis on racing in -- for all of American history has been on these 3-year-old racers. But the 3-year-olds used to last and run until they were four and five and sometimes six. Now the 3-year-olds tend to go to stud right away after the Triple Crown Race, and the best American horses last year -- the horses that won the Triple Crown last year -- both Point Given and Monarchos -- and most of their contenders, are retired. Only a few of those horses are back running as 4-year-olds because their bones couldn't take the stress of this strenuous sport.

O'BRIEN: All right, when's the next time we're going to see one of your horses at the Derby?

SQUIRES: Well, you know, I'm going to tell you every year I'm going to have one.

O'BRIEN: All right. Jim Squires...

SQUIRES: You can believe that.

O'BRIEN: Jim Squires is the man who orchestrated the Monarchos phenomenon, and the author of Horse of a Different Color, and a man wearing a permanent smile at Churchill Downs in Louisville, joining us today on Derby Day. Enjoy the race, sir.

SQUIRES: Thank you, Miles.

O'BRIEN: All right, take care. We appreciate you being with us.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com