Wednesday on the Derby Backstretch with Katie Petrunyak

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Transcript

00:00This morning on the Churchill Downs backside we spoke with Bill Simon, owner of Barber Road,

00:07Mike Macken of Lucky 7 Stable, and Katie Tolbert, the exercise rider for Cyberknife.

00:12It's not been like anything, Katie. It's just been unbelievable. We've, you know,

00:18ran Walmart for a long time and got a chance to do some really cool things in my life,

00:22but nothing like this. This is just so special and I'm really thankful to be able to be here.

00:26It's just honestly a blessing. We built this team with some of the really nice,

00:31young, up-and-coming trainers. Johnny Ortiz is doing a fabulous job. It's his first time

00:37in the Derby. Jared Hughes actually found the horse for us. His first time in the Derby. Ray

00:43Gutierrez, really great up-and-coming jockey. First time in the Derby and we're all in this

00:48together and we're having a blast. He's chill. He's just happy as can be and I think that's

00:53Johnny's strategy here is to keep him happy and right now he's taking a nap,

00:56so he's not nervous. We shouldn't be.

01:10It's only Wednesday and it's probably been the most amazing like four days of my life. I mean,

01:15everybody says it'll ruin you. I've been probably 50 Derby or 40 Derby so far in my life, but this

01:21has just been like the owners of Breeders' Dinner last night. It was just so much fun

01:25and being a part of it. It's fun. It's just been a joy and having all the family around. We just

01:31feel so blessed right now. Rattle Rower gets her first grade one in our family. That was amazing

01:35at Keeneland, so that was a Breeders' Cup win-your-in day. Quite unfortunate, couldn't

01:40make the Breeders' Cup and hopefully it gets in today. And then Smile Happy, he won the Jockey

01:45Cup, so I was a grade two and that was our other. We won a grade two. No, we've only won a grade

01:50three prior to that, so that was another big race and we had a lot of family members. I've got 112

01:56tickets that we accounted for right now, so that's the number. And that's just not even friends,

02:02that's just family. It's fun. It's a fun time.

02:13I'm Katie Tolbert. I'm an assistant and exercise rider for Brad Cox and I've been working with

02:17Cyberknife for a while. I've been really lucky. He's such a cool horse. As a two-year-old, he was

02:23a little bit tough to handle. He was really energetic, really immature, kind of didn't know

02:28what he was doing out there. And just over the past six months, eight months, he's really grown

02:33up a lot and we're really excited. He's done really well. He's starting to focus. He's

02:37growing up and he feels great, so hopefully we'll have some luck this weekend.