Post Position 1

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photo by Horsephotos/NTRA

Career Earnings: $315,775

• At nearly 29-1, he ran fourth in the Kentucky Derby, where he made up ground late and was beaten a half-length by Derby second choice Curlin for third.

• Grandsire Wild Again sired 2002 Belmont Stakes winner Sarava.

• Both of Imawildandcrazyguy’s wins have come at his home base of Calder Race Course.

• Has yet to win a stakes raced, but placed in the Grade 3 Risen Star earlier this year.

• Imawildandcrazyguy is aptly named by owner Michael Eigner.  “The first day he was at our barn, he dropped the rider and ran off,” Kaplan said.  “We got a hold of him and he reared up, struck the hotwalker and nailed me against the wall.  We got control of him, got on the phone with the owners and told them, ‘sorry, but this horse has to be gelded now.  And by the way, change his name.’  His name was Cupcake Milase, but he was no cupcake.”

TRAINER - William Kaplan  

Kaplan, 61, is a native of Brooklyn, N.Y., but now resides in Plantation, Fla., where he moved in 1970.

He graduated from Long Island University with an accounting degree. He became a CPA and, later, an army lieutenant, earning a Bronze Star and Purple Heart during the Vietnam War.

After the war, he owned and operated Air South, a charter service between Miami and Key West in the late 1970s. During that time, he also bought a few horses, with trainer Newcombe Green as his mentor. He eventually he sold his airline company and took out his training license in 1979.

His best horses have included Seacliff, who swept the 1995 Florida Stallion Series, Fortune Pending, Drums of Thunder, Ells Once Again, who raced with three screws in her leg, Goldarama, Mr. Livingston, Multiplicity, Castelbrook, Prospect of Love, Ravensmoor, Southern Velvet and Golden Bimmer.

JOCKEY - Mark Guidry

Guidry, 46, is a native of Lafayette, La. and now resides in Louisville. He was a finalist for the New York Racing Association’s 2006 Mike Venezia Award (with eventual winner Edgar Prado and Calvin Borel) for his work with victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Guidry, who has raced in New York before and regularly at Saratoga, won his 5,000 th race on Kentucky Derby Day, May 5. He is a perennial figure in the top 40 national jockeys’ rankings.

He began his riding career at age nine in his home state, competing at bush tracks and then moving on to regulated tracks at 16, winning his first race at Delta Downs. He moved his tack to Illinois in 1986, and became the dominant rider on that circuit, topping the rider’s standings at Hawthorne seven times, Sportsman’s Park nine times and also twice at Arlington.

In recent years, he has ridden in Southern California as well as Kentucky. He earned the prestigious George Woolf Memorial Award in March. The award is given annually to the jockey who demonstrates high standards of personal and professional conduct, on and off the racetrack.

OWNERS - Lewis Pell and Michael Eigner

Michael Eigner is the retired president of Tribune Broadcasting.  Born May 19, 1945 in Jerusalem , Israel , Eigner now lives in Westchester County , N.Y.   He has a wife, Linda, and two daughters.  Eigner had horses with trainer Bill Spawr when he lived in California .

Lewis Pell has been friends with trainer Bill Kaplan since childhood and it was Kaplan who urged Pell to buy horses.  Born June 15, 1944 in Brooklyn , Pell still lives in New York City where he operates a business that deals with the design and manufacturing of medical devices, mostly for treatment of heart problems.