Meet the breeder who sold the Kentucky Derby winner for $1,000. And is thrilled.

Gail Rice had a goal.

“I always said I wanted to sell a million-dollar horse,” she said. “And I did, for a $1,000.”

And with that, the 59-year-old self-described “backyard breeder” from Ocala, Fla., let out one of the most glorious and joyful laughs you have ever heard in your entire life. With good reason. After all, not every person has bred a Kentucky Derby winner, much less be the subject of one of the more unlikely stories in the history of the world’s most famous horse race.

Medina Spirit won last Saturday’s Kentucky Derby. And Medina Spirit was bred by Rice, was foaled on a 10-acre farm in Florida, was saved by Rice’s quick thinking, was then sold for first $1,000 as a yearling and then $35,000 as a 2-year-old after his mother was given away. As fate would have it — Gail Rice is a big believer in fate — the colt ended up with trainer Bob Baffert and, as a 12-1 shot, hit the wire first at Churchill Downs.

“I’m like, ‘Oh my God, this is me, this is really me,” said Rice, who was a witness at Churchill Downs before returning home to Florida. “Little Gail Rice, backyard breeder and now I’m like, ‘Kentucky Derby? This is me, right?’”

Rice’s planning aided Medina Spirit as a foal

This is Gail Rice. Raised in Pennsylvania, she married Wayne Rice, the son of horseman Clyde Rice. Together, they took a van of 10 horses to Florida. After awhile, daughter Taylor and sons Kevin and Adam came along. Taylor is now a former jockey married to current jockey Jose Ortiz. Kevin and Adam both train horses.

In the meantime, around 2009 a friend gave Gail Rice a mare, Scoot on By, and she started dabbling in the breeding business. Scoot On By foaled Triple Cross, named for Rice’s church, who won races and helped Rice buy Shiny Happy Groovy and Scribbling Sarah, who gave birth to a filly by Mr. Speaker that sold for $65,000. That filly, Speech, won the Ashland Stakes at Keeneland last July and finished third in the Kentucky Oaks.

Mongolian Changa was a $9,000 yearling purchase by Wayne Rice, who also trained her to one win in six starts. Upon the filly’s retirement, Wayne gave the mare to Gail, who bred her to Protonico, a first-year stallion at Taylor Made Farm, because she thought it would be (a) a good match and (b) the price ($6,500) was right.

Mongolian Changa was coming off a bowed tendon injury, so Kathie Maybee of Phoenix Farm helped get her in foal. But when Mongolian Changa was carrying her first, and so far only, foal there in Florida, Rice noticed the mare was not ready.

“She didn’t have any milk,” Rice said. “She had no bags. They have signs of birthing and she had no signs.”

On April 5, 2018, Rice was coming onto the farm — “Thank the good Lord, he aligned it,” she said — when she noticed that the mare was down in the field “and the little feet are trying to come out.” Rice rounded up son Kevin and his wife Emily, who helped her deliver the foal.

Knowing that Mongolian Changa would not produce milk and the all-important colostrum needed for newborns, Rice had frozen an extra supply from Scribbling Sarah. It was a hero’s move. Rice thawed the milk, filled the bottle and fed Medina Spirit before Mongolian Changa began producing her own milk a few hours later.

“He was beautiful from the minute he came out,” Rice said of Medina Spirit. “He had class in him from day one. And played. He was very friendly. He would always come to see what you were doing. I said, ‘He’s going to be a little racehorse.’ You speak it and you want it to be so.”

Financial circumstances forced Rice to sell Medina Spirit

It was also about this time that Rice and her husband decided to divorce. Needing to reduce expenses, Gail Rice sold off stock and placed Medina Spirit in the Ocala Breeders’ Sales Company 2019 Winter Mixed Sale without a reserve price. The yearling drew only the minimum bid of $1,000 from pinhooker Christy Whitman.

“I was disappointed,” Rice said. “I couldn’t bring myself to put my hand up to bid against Christy, because how was I going to feed this horse, and train him and get him to the races? It’s business and you have to treat it as a business, otherwise I would not have had clothing or food on the table.”

After the sale, Rice thanked Whitman for buying her colt. Whitman replied she would offer the colt at a 2-year-old sale. She did. As a favor to friend Oussama Aboughazale, owner of Protonico, Amr F. Zedan took a look at the colt, liked him and purchased him for $35,000.

Soon after, Rice gave Mongolian Changa to a friend in Ohio, while retaining 10 percent. When Medina Spirit began showing real promise as a runner, Taylor Made Farm purchased the mare. She’s currently in foal to Not This Time.

You don’t have to be a billionaire to win the Kentucky Derby

Meanwhile, Rice followed Medina Spirit’s progress, her confidence growing that her former foal could not just make the Kentucky Derby but maybe even win it.

“I thought he could win the race, but you just don’t know,” Rice said. “It’s the Kentucky Derby and anything can happen. There’s 20 horses. He looked like he could, you know. And that’s what they call him, the little horse that could.”

Not just could, but did. Rice said she’s proud that Medina Spirit has proven you don’t have to be a billionaire to win the Kentucky Derby, you can be a $1,000 yearling from a backyard breeder and still beat the big boys.

“Have faith in the good Lord,” Rice said. “When I kept saying that this horse could win, I got that tingle in my body that maybe it could happen.”

After it happened, she visited Medina Spirit at his Churchill Downs barn Sunday morning, “And he tried to bite me. He threw water all over me. I said, ‘I’m never washing these pants again.’”

And then she laughed.

The kicker: Medina Spirit is the seventh Florida-bred to win the Kentucky Derby, just as it was Baffert’s record seventh Derby win. His first came in 1997 with Silver Charm, the last Florida-bred to win the roses.

“I have no regrets,” Rice said. “Other people are making money with this horse and the mare and I’m very happy. The path that horse took to get to Bob Baffert and the Derby, I wouldn’t change it.”

Now that’s a million-dollar feeling.

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