Derby Store Owner Keeps Streak Intact With Trip to Kentucky

This post was reported and written by Patch contributor Cindy Nevitt.

Do you know the dates of the most important milestones in your life? If you’re like most people, you remember the years by connecting them to special events.

For Mike Yanniello, the event he uses most often to measure time is the Kentucky Derby. A longtime lover of all things equine, Yanniello tells time in terms of horses instead of hours.

Year he discovered his lifetime passion for the Sport of Kings? Secretariat (1973). Year his Uncle Dom died? Barbaro (third week of May 2006). Year he graduated high school? Ruffian (1975).

“I was 18 and following a horse by the name of Ruffian,” Yanniello said. “She broke down on the track and needed surgery. I remember I was in tears.”

The filly was leading the Belmont Stakes when she snapped both bones in her right foreleg but kept running, causing more damage. When she awoke from surgery, she thrashed about so violently that she injured herself even more seriously, and had to be euthanized.

“The tragedy of Ruffian,” he calls it.

Sadly, many of Yanniello’s favorites have suffered misfortune on the track and he knows their stories intimately. Barbaro, winner of the 2006 Kentucky Derby, shattered three bones in his right hind leg at the Preakness and was ambulanced off the track. Eight Belles finished second in the 2008 Kentucky Derby and collapsed immediately after with compound fractures in both front ankles. She was euthanized due to the extent of her injuries.

The horse that has the strongest hold over him is Secretariat, the Triple Crown winner that 40 years ago blew away the field with the largest margin of victory in history in winning the Belmont by 31 lengths. Yanniello so reveres Secretariat that he has an almost life-size replica of the big red horse in his store, It’s My Derby, at Stainton’s: A Gallery of Shops.

He also has a replica of the pole at the finish line at Churchill Downs in his store, a souvenir from this year’s annual trip to the Derby. Yanniello estimates he’s attended the Derby a few dozen times, the Preakness 15 times and the Belmont the least. This year, he attended the first two legs of the nation’s most famous stakes races but opted out of the third because, he said, “There was no chance of a Triple Crown winner, so my heart wasn’t in it.”

Horse racing is such a passion with Yanniello that he has made it his business. In addition to owning two It’s My Derby stores — his other is in Doylestown, Pa. — Yanniello is a partner in three thoroughbred race horses: Sweet Dixie Bell, Newly Fashioned and One Sock Down.

With the exception of the years when he was married, the Derby has been Yanniello’s annual indulgence. He makes the 13-hour drive in order to roll through horse country, and stays at the Downtown Hampton, which he says is “very welcoming at half the price” of other accommodations.

“You think it’s just the greatest two minutes in sports, and it’s true, it is,” said Yanniello of the Derby. “However, the Kentucky Derby starts two weeks prior with 100 different events, including an air show and the largest fireworks display in the east.”

Thunder Over Louisville is held annually in mid-April and has been the kickoff event to the Derby since 1990. Yanniello also enjoys the barbecues, jockey get-togethers, the Pegasus Parade and the city itself, with its bourbon bars, art museums and hip restaurants, including his favorite, Jeff Ruby’s Steakhouse.

“It’s the No. 1 place to go,” Yanniello said. “I go every year to get a steak, iceberg wedge salad, baked macaroni and cheese, and creamed spinach. I rarely eat meat, but I salivate every year for my filet.”

Yanniello will celebrate the 40th anniversary of Secretariat’s Triple Crown this year, and has another celebration already on his horizon.

“Next year is the 10-year anniversary of Smarty Jones,” he said of the 2004 Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner.

A second-place finish in the Belmont prevented Smarty Jones from wining the Triple Crown, a feat achieved by 11 horses. In fact, 2004 was the next-to-last time Yanniello went to the Belmont. The last time Yanniello went to the Belmont?

“Big Brown,” he said, characteristically answering with the name of the horse instead of the year (2008).

In keeping with Yanniello’s interest in Triple Crown winners, Big Brown was the last horse to have a chance at becoming the 12th member of the elite club of big winners, having won the Derby and the Preakness before his jockey pulled him up and prevented him from finishing the Belmont in 2008. The 2012 threat, I’ll Have Another, was scratched from the Belmont lineup after winning the Derby and the Preakness.

Despite his extensive knowledge of horses and their pedigrees, Yanniello admits it helps him little when it comes to placing his bets.

“This is one sport where it's more about luck than science," he said.