Faster horses said:
Barbaro was quite a horse and there was also a really neat story about the trainer.
http://www.trib.com/articles/2006/05/06/news/wyoming/95f86b23b4845ba887257166000502a9.txt
Derby bound
By BARBARA NORDBY
Star-Tribune staff writer Saturday, May 06, 2006
Cynthia Milligan will be at War Memorial Fieldhouse this afternoon, even if lucky Travis Roth won't.
Cynthia will be there to support friends graduating from the University of Wyoming. One of them should be Travis, getting his master's degree in renewable resources, but he'll be having way more fun.
When an associate dean calls his name, he'll be strolling the grounds at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky.
When they announce his thesis project, with a long title that begins, "Groundwater and Arsenic: a regional assessment...", Travis might be ordering a mint julep.
And when 107 other College of Agriculture students step forward to get their diplomas and hoods, Travis will be waiting for post time, 6:04 p.m. Eastern time, when a certain horse he's rooting for will blow out of gate number 8 and compete for the $1,453,200 winner's share.
"That kid is the luckiest kid I've ever met," said Cynthia, a 25-year-old grad student from Rock Springs. She was stuck studying for a final Friday while Travis headed east with his big brother and sister.
Travis has his father's permission to skip the graduation ceremony for the pomp and circumstance of the 132nd Kentucky Derby.
Dr. Don Roth, dean of the University of Wyoming graduate school, explained:
When Travis was 9, he got on a flight in Denver with his big brother and sister, Jody and Melissa. The kids were going to visit their grandmother in New York.
It was July 19, 1989, summer vacation from school in Laramie.
Travis and his siblings told the Louisville, Ky., Courier-Journal last week that Jody sat up front on the huge DC-10, and Travis and Melissa took their seats next to a man they didn't know.
The man was an Olympic equestrian, and he spent the flight entertaining the kids, playing cards and talking.
He kept talking to them when an engine exploded, and the plane began to bank to the right. The pilot made a demanding emergency landing in Sioux City, Iowa. Everyone braced themselves and the pilot counted down, 3, 2, 1, then the plane crashed as it landed, broke apart and ignited in a rolling fireball.
When the wreckage settled, before checking on his own fiancee, the horseman, Michael Matz, helped the siblings from Laramie out of the plane, telling them to run away as fast as they could, away from the destruction.
He and his fiancee and the three children were among 185 who survived the crash. One hundred and eleven people died.
Matz stayed with the children that night and until they could fly back to Denver.
Their father saw the crash on the news and waited in a United office to hear if his children were safe. When they arrived, he was there to gather them into his arms.
"We're very fortunate," Roth said. "(Matz) led our children out. Everything was burning and smoking. He was keeping their minds off of what was happening."
The Roth family has counted their blessings since then, Roth said. Roth and his wife, Leslie, a reading teacher at Laramie Junior High School, have many to count.
Big brother Jody went to UW and is a financial planner in Fort Collins, where his wife just this week gave birth to the couple's second child.
Sister Melissa went to Purdue for electrical engineering and now is a stay-at-home mother of two in Denver.
And Travis, who studied economics and French at the University of North Carolina, today earns his master's degree.
Every Christmas, they exchanged cards with Matz, who began training racehorses. They followed his career and celebrated his successes, even if they weren't huge racing fans.
This year, Matz has his first Derby contender with Barbaro, a dark bay colt with 4-1 odds to win.
The jockey will wear blue and green, while everyone at UW is in their brown and prairie gold.
Cynthia Milligan already forgave Roth for skipping out on the graduation ceremony. She described him as a laid-back, easy-going person who gets along with all types of people.
"I was like, 'Wait a minute, aren't you going to the graduation?' At the same time, it's like, how many chances do you have to get to the Kentucky Derby? If it were me I'd definitely go to the Derby too."
Roth plans to get his doctoral degree, so Milligan figured he'd have another chance to walk across the stage.
Roth's academic advisor, Dr. K.J. Reddy, was more eager to talk about Roth's accomplishments in school than horse racing.
"He skipped graduation for that Kentucky Derby show I guess," Reddy said.
Reddy said Roth worked very hard on his thesis, testing private well water across the west for arsenic. Roth will give a talk in Mexico City in June about his research, Reddy said. "It's a worldwide global health issue."
Meanwhile, he's going to have a little fun.
Dr. Roth gave his kids $100 to bet for him on Barbaro. But he said it doesn't matter which horse crosses the finish line first, or if he turns a profit.
This proud father has already won.
Reach Barbara Nordby at (307) 266-0633 or at
[email protected]
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