The 132nd running of the Kentucky Derby takes place Saturday afternoon and this year’s race has a definite Houston flavor. Bob and John — owned by Texans owner Bob McNair and his wife, Janice — goes off as one of three horses in the race with 12-1 odds, behind only Brother Derek (3-1) and Barbaro (4-1) and Lawyer Ron (4-1). The Chronicle’s John Lopez has more on the McNairs and Bob and John.
Bob and John is the most recent product of the McNairs’ quest to to breed a Derby winner, which they coordinate out of their magnificent 1,500 acre Stonerside Stables in the heart of Bourbon County, Kentucky. Under the careful direction of their advisor John Adger, the McNairs have populated Stonerside with a band of almost 100 broodmares and built the racing stable to its current level of about 70 horses in training. Stonerside is currently the sixth leading breeder in North America and the tenth leading racing stable.
Bob and John is following the lead of another Stonerside homebred, Congaree, who ran the second fastest mile in Derby history before finishing third in the 2001 race. The Cliff’s Edge, bred and sold as a yearling at Stonerside, came in fifth after losing a shoe in the slop of 2004’s rain-drenched Derby.
Meanwhile, Wall Street Journal ($) sports columnist Allen St. John explores the bloodlines of every Kentucky Derby winner from 1940 through last year and concludes that, despite horse owners’ dependence on breeding, there is little direct correlation between a horse that wins on the track and one that produces champion offspring.