Horse Pay

After consulting with Gardiner, they signed on, fully aware that this wasn't necessarily a moneymaking enterprise. "For us," Judi says, "the bottom line was that the students would get the money for scholarships. The horse thing is just a lark."

Today in Santa Rosa, however, the horse thing certainly feels serious. Gardiner is sitting on a folding chair in Box 92, surrounded by a handful of his partners and investors, as well as his wife, Theresa. The afternoon is softening ever so slightly into evening; the grandstand has filled up, and downstairs the crowd is thick all along the stretch run. As the horses make their way to the gate for the 10th race, there's a lot of anxious talk in the box about just how calm Irish looked in the paddock.

Paolo Vescia

Russ Gardiner with his horse Seawolf, son of Swiss Yodeler and fund-raiser for Sonoma State.

Paolo Vescia

Seawolf trains at Golden Gate Fields.

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"He looks real calm."

"He was real calm."

"Of all the horses in the paddock, he was the coolest."

"He was calm when I went to go visit him."

"He looked calm."

At 5:29, the horses fly from the gate. From the get-go, Irish lags behind the pack, and as they're lashed around the first turn, he is well behind, perhaps sixth. The public address announcer is keeping up a staccato patter, and the crowd noise begins to swell. The horses round the quarter-mile pole, and then something happens. Irish slips off to the side, then weaves back through the pack, and suddenly he's in fifth, then fourth, and Gardiner and the rest of the box start to scream.

The horses thunder past the grandstand, the staggered beat of 40 hoofs sounding like an enormous drumroll, and the second horse to cross the line is none other than ... the 25-to-1 long shot ... the 2-year-old racing for a small-fry stable and an underdog school ... it's Irish Dodger.

The box erupts. Handshakes and high-fives all around.

"Irish!"

"He was in the back the whole way!"

"Eighth when he started out!"

"He almost caught him!"

"Nobody believed in him," Theresa says finally, as the long shot is led from the track. "Who is this Irish Dodger?"