This Team Pulled Off Quite a Sting Operation

You might not believe in the horse, but could you at least correctly pronounce the name?

It's "JOCK-oh-mo."

Trevor Denman, the esteemed track announcer, has already publicly botched it twice.

"We kept sending them notes about it," Dottie Ingardo-Shirreffs, Giacomo's racing manager, said with a sigh.

Second, the jockey.

He has finally won a Derby in his 12th try, so could you get off his once-broken back?

"Honestly, I'm so numb," Mike Smith said after he finished crying. "I stood up at the wire, and it's like all the strength just left my body."

Third, the owners.

Neither of them is named the Boss, they are not part of a cozy small-town syndicate, but talk about cool.

Jerry Moss, who was the "M" in A&M records, named his horse not after an obscure street or boring hero, but the son of rock star Sting.

Meet Giacomo Sumner, today the most popular 9-year-old in his New York homeroom.

"We do those kinds of things," said Jerry's wife, Ann.

She was so excited after the four-legged Giacomo won the Kentucky Derby on Saturday, the other half of the L.A. power couple wanted to literally share it with the world.

"Hey, you won me 700 bucks!" a drunk fan screamed into her face.

"Wonderful," she said, pointing to a blanket of roses she clutched in her arms. "Here, take one!"

So the 131st Derby wasn't won by the loaded New York trainer or loopy Tampa owner or that cute little Arkansas tear-jerker.

So what? This story was better. This story was more fun. It doesn't matter if we never hear from Giacomo again -- and we might not -- this was a story worth telling.

"It's a movie," Smith said.

It is the story about the power of Derby underdogs, the strength of Derby shadows and -- this is the best part -- the foolishness of Derby experts who discounted California-based horses because of one sluggish prep.

"Yeah, we were pretty much under the radar all week," Jerry Moss said.

Under the radar? They were more hidden here than Churchill Downs' newly configured twin spires.

Hundreds of media here, yet the owner was interviewed by only one reporter all week.

If we had paid more attention, we would have realized that Moss got into horses only

because he was trying to soothe a business associate who had been hospitalized with a

stroke.