Mike Smith rides So Happy for emotional Kentucky Derby run

Mike Smith did more than guide So Happy to a Santa Anita Derby victory. He delivered Mark Glatt his first win in the race, first Kentucky Derby starter, and a rare jolt of forward motion for a stable still carrying the loss of Dena Glatt, who died of cardiac arrest on Feb. 12 at 57.

So Happy answered with a performance that looked every bit like a Derby horse. The bay colt, born April 26, 2023, won the Santa Anita Derby by 2 3/4 lengths on April 4 at 1 1/8 miles in 1:49.01 and earned a Beyer Speed Figure of 100. He went into the race 3-for-4, having broken his maiden at Del Mar on Nov. 22, 2025, added a win at Santa Anita on Jan. 10, 2026, and finished third in a 1 1/16-mile stakes race on March 7. The form stack matters: this was not a fluke, but a colt who kept stepping forward.

The Santa Anita Derby also clarified the class line. So Happy beat the even-money favorite Potente, with Vitruvian Man third, and Potente’s jockey, Juan Hernandez, said the colt was under pressure throughout. Even in defeat, Potente strengthened his Derby position by earning 100 points. So Happy, meanwhile, punched his own ticket to Churchill Downs as the race’s winner and left no doubt that his Santa Anita effort was more than sentiment. It was speed, stamina, and timing.

For Glatt, the win landed with a weight that horse racing rarely hides. He and Dena Glatt were married 25 years and had three children, and her death came less than two months before So Happy’s breakthrough. In the winner’s circle, Glatt said he missed her and that it was not the same without her. Smith, who was 60 at the time, said he called on Dena “at the eighth pole” to help get the horse home. That is the kind of line the sport produces when the competition is real and the emotion is realer.

Smith has already won the Kentucky Derby twice, and now he gets another swing with a colt by Runhappy, who earned $1.496 million and won seven of 10 starts, out of So Cunning, a daughter of Blame. Kentucky Derby records listed So Happy with $480,000 in career earnings. The 152nd Kentucky Derby is set for May 2 at Churchill Downs, and Smith could become the oldest jockey ever to win it, topping Bill Shoemaker’s 54-year-old mark from 1986. That is the sporting frame. The emotional frame is simpler: So Happy kept a stable moving, and in this game, that is no small thing.