Mine That Bird and company rise with a region

There are a lot of last places you would ever expect to see a Kentucky Derby ring. One of them has to be Jorge's Cafe on West U.S. Highway 70 in the town of Ruidoso Downs, high in the mountains of New Mexico's Lincoln National Forest. But there it was, all diamond-dotted black onyx, inlaid with delicate golden spires and attached to the right hand Chip Woolley was using to mop up the last of his huevos rancheros with a corn tortilla. "After I got divorced I swore I'd never wear a ring again," Woolley said, sipping an iced tea. "Until this one came along." Maybe it wasn't so unusual after all, a ring like that in this part of the world. For one thing, Ruidoso Downs has been home for half a century to the All American Futurity for Quarter Horses, a race worth a million dollars even before the Thoroughbred game came up with such a number. Win the All American and you've earned Southwestern bragging rights the rest of your life. The Kentucky Derby, though, is a little tougher to put into context. Since that day last May when, in Woolley's words, "some dumbass from New Mexico just won the Kentucky Derby," the legend of Mine That Bird and his people has grown, stanza by stanza...read more (registration required)