LOUISVILLE – America needs for General Quarters to win the Kentucky Derby. It’s simple as that. At a time when the nation is suffering in so many ways, when the future is so uncertain, the country needs an old-fashioned feel-good story to remind us that dreams can be made real if you’re willing to work hard enough and persevere long enough and stay true to yourself.

The last time the national morale was so low at Derby time was 1973. We were weary of the war in Vietnam, cynical over the growing scandal known as Watergate, and apprehensive about the economy. We badly needed a hero to divert us and uplift us.

It was then than a big red colt named Secretariat came along to not only become racing’s first Triple Crown winner since Citation in 1948, but to capture our hearts with his beauty and excellence as he galloped to victory in the Kentucky Derby, Preakness, and Belmont Stakes.

In the spring of Secretariat, Tom McCarthy was principal of Seneca High School in Louisville. He was well past the age when he could play pickup basketball with a couple of former Seneca students named Wes Unseld and Mike Redd, as he did in the early 1960s, but still young enough to be inspired by the majesty of a great horse.

Understand, please, this isn’t to compare General Quarters, the steel-gray colt McCarthy will saddle in Saturday’s 135th running of the Derby, with Secretariat. But he does have the same opportunity to give the nation a morale boost when it needs it most.

Because, you see, General Quarters is a one-horse stable. A 75-year-old former biology teacher and principal, McCarthy owns him, trains him, grooms him, and hot walks him. He personally gives him baths, wraps his ankles with bandages, massages his flanks, and feeds him.

And in the Kentucky Derby, the most coveted race on the planet, the one-horse stable will be going against colts owned by the Arab oil sheiks of Dubai, by weight-loss tycoon Jenny Craig, and by businessmen to whom McCarthy’s school pension would be only chump change.

It’s easily the best story on the backstretch this week. The ABC Nightly News with Charles Gibson named him its “person of the week.” Profiles also are in the works at NBC, CBS, ESPN, and virtually every other news outlet with Derby credentials.

And how is McCarthy  handling all this celebrity?

“I stay away from it as much as I can,” he said. “My wife, she’s a very private person. She doesn’t want me talking about her or the kids or anything. She’s looking for a dress to wear to the Derby. This part of it is all new for us.”

The horde of media types and onlookers gets so big the week before the Derby that sometimes the trainers of serious contenders block access to their horses with drawn blinds and even saw-horse barricades. But not Tom McCarthy. Anybody who walks by Barn 37 can see General Quarters when he sticks his head out of stall 15.

Yesterday, amazingly, McCarthy noticed a man on crutches standing outside on the gravel, straining to get a look at General Quarters. “I’ve got a place in my heart for people on crutches,” McCarthy said. So he went outside, introduced himself, and invited the man and his wife to come inside the barn and feed General Quarters some carrots.

“My wife and I drove up from McCaddenville, N.C., just to see if we could see some of the horses,” said the man, whose name turned out to be Jerry Leigh. “I never dreamed we’d get to do this.”

“Well,” said McCarthy, “thanks for coming all this way. We really appreciate this. It’s awful nice of you folks to come up here for this.”

Are you kidding me? When in the name of Ben Jones has the trainer of a serious Derby contender ever invited a complete stranger to come into his barn, feed his horse some carrots, and then thank him for coming? It has never happened. Not once in 135 years. But that’s Tom McCarthy for you.

After General Quarters galloped into Derby contention with an authoritative victory in the Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland on April 11, McCarthy didn’t take him back to the Sports Spectrum, the old harness track where he’s usually stabled. But he also didn’t put him in one of the nice barns usually reserved for Derby contenders.

Instead, he accepted John Churchman’s offer to stable him in Barn 37, which badly needs a coat of paint. Like McCarthy, Churchman is the longtime proprietor of a small stable. He and McCarthy have been friends for 40 years, going back to the day when his friend Joe Puckett was training McCarthy’s horses.

Now that Churchman is battling cancer, McCarthy wanted to make it a point to share the moment with him. So sometimes Churchman will hold General Quarters’ bridle while McCarthy hoses him down and sponges him off.

“I’m glad for Tom,” Churchman said. “This horse is for real. Believe me, he can win this thing. He don’t have to be on the lead and he don’t have to be in the back. They can put him anywhere and he’ll be flying at the end.”

Kentucky needs for General Quarters to win the Derby. It’s simple as that.  As always, the commonwealth ranks near the bottom on all the charts that evaluate various aspects of education. As a former biology teacher and principal, McCarthy would be in a unique position to help the commonwealth promote education.

In the early ‘60s, when Unseld was leading Seneca High to back-to-back state championships in 1963 and ’64 (Redd was his Jordanesque teammate in ‘63), McCarthy supervised a study hall that included a student named Diane Sawyer. Yes, that Diane Sawyer. (Memo to Diane: If you come in for the Derby, you’ll have a heckuva edge over Katie Couric or anybody else from the national media).

McCarthy loves his former students and faculty members. On the day after the Blue Grass Stakes, Gary Harris, who took biology from McCarthy in the late ‘60s, called him up to offer congratulations.

“He was the best teacher,” Harris said. “We had a policy at Seneca that you couldn’t leave campus. Well, once I forgot an English paper and went home to get it. The next day Mr. McCarthy called me into his supply room and said, ‘You know I’ve got to punish you.’ And then he had me hold out my hands and rapped me across the knuckles with a ruler. I reminded him of that when I called him.”

McCarthy was at Seneca in 1975, when Jefferson County was shaken by court-order busing to achieve racial desegregation. He doesn’t recall any problems. If some of the inner-city black kids wanted to bring boom boxes to school, McCarthy simply had them tagged and stored until after school hours. “It went very nicely,” he says.

After Seneca, McCarthy was principal at Durrett High until it closed in the early 1980s. He also was principal at Valley High before retiring in 1990.

Today McCarthy still loves education. After he gets home from the track, he usually retreats to the library at the back of the home where he’s lived for years and reads the newspaper “from back to back.” Then he’ll read something from the National Geographic or the Smithsonian magazine.

“I love to read about genetics,” said McCarthy. “Genetics is a wonderful thing.

Read the Rest After the Jump….

The thoroughbred industry needs General Quarters to win the Derby. It’s simple as that. The industry still is smarting from the black eyes it got in last year’s Derby. The connections of the victorious Big Brown had shady reputations. Even worse, the filly Eight Belles broke down and had to be destroyed after finishing a game second.

This caused such an angry outcry from animal-rights activisits and others that the industry was forced to appoint commisions and conduct investigations. The conclusion, essentially, was that thoroughbreds are such fragile animals that no amount of precautions can prevent one from taking a bad step every now and then.

Moreover, the industry in Kentucky is suffering from far more than the economic woes that beset every aspect of society. Indeed, it’s under attack from rival states that have been able to inflate their purses and breeders’ incentive programs with revenue from slots and casinos.

Because the Kentucky General Assembly has refused to approve forms of expanded gaming necessary for the commonwealth’s world-famed throughbred industry to remain competitive with its rival states, stables and breeding farms are moving to new locations, usually against their will, and the state’s weakest tracks, Turfway and Ellis Park, are literally on life-support systems.

But if McCarthy could win the Derby with General Quarters, it would be a reminder of all that’s good about the horse industry and how much it does for the state’s image and economy. In addition, it would show investors that a Derby winner can literally come from anywhere – and that might encourage new investors to buy a horse.

Due to his academic interest in genetics, McCarthy liked General Quarters’ pedigree when he saw it in the 2007 Keeneland September Sales catalog. His sire, Sky Mesa, is a great-great grandson of 1977 Triple Crown winner Seattle Slew. His dam, Ecology, has 1990 Derby winner Unbridled and the great sire Danzig in her pedigree.

The colt was bought for $20,000 by Ken and Sarah Ramsey, who annually are among the leading owners at Churchill and Keeneland. They decided to give him his first start on May 30, 2008, in a claiming race at Churchill. Noting the pedigree, McCarthy put in a claim for him and won a three-way shake for the right to buy him for $20,000.

After the colt failed to make much of an impression at Churchill and Keeneland, McCarthy shipped him to Florida and put him in the care of Mark Miller, another smalltime trainer, while he stayed in Louisville to take care of some health issues. When you’re 75, health issues can’t be ignored.

The colt did well for Miller, getting two seconds and a victory in the Sam Davis Stakes on Valentine’s Day at Tampa Bay Downs. Back in the care of McCarthy, he finished fifth to Musket Man in the Tampa Bay Derby, but came to Keeneland and won the Blue Grass at 14-to-1 odds.

Jockey Edgar Coa wasn’t impressed enough to stay on him for the Derby, opting instead for Musket Man, who followed his Tampa Bay Derby winner with a wire-to-wire victory in the Illinois Derby. But all McCarthy did was shrug and retain the services of Julian Leparoux, a talented young rider who’s 0-for-2 in the Derby.

The first Derby McCarthy saw in person was the 1955 renewal when Swaps defeated Nashua. For the past 30 years, he usually has watched the Derby with friends on the backside. His favorite Derby winner was another steel-gray, Spectacular Bid, who cruised to victory in 1979 as the overwhelming favorite.

“I got a $2 win ticket on Bid and kept it as a souvenir,” McCarthy said. “I framed the ticket with the page from the program that had the field and a picture of Bid. I kept it for a long time, but it got lost somewhere in transition.”

After General Quarters returned from a gallop yesterday morning, McCarthy’s disposition was as sunny and warm as the morning weather. He fussed around the colt’s stall, making sure everything was just so.

When it was time to wrap his front ankles, McCarthy dropped to his knees in the straw and began expertly applying the bandages.

“These grooms today don’t do this anymore,” he said as he worked. “They don’t know how to rub a horse, how to wrap his ankles, like the old-timers did. I’m glad I get to do all this myself. I don’t have any other horses so I can devote all my time to this one.”

The story of all Derby stories would be to have General Quarters beat one of Sheik Maktoum’s horses in a photo finish. Then the only question would be how quickly Hollywood could get the movie done. When such scenarios are mentioned to McCarthy, he only smiles.

It’s safe to assume that nothing will ever change McCarthy or turn his head. He’s already turned down several multi-million-dollar offers for only a piece of General Quarters. At his age, you see, it’s all about the horse and the dream and the chance to share it even with a stranger from North Carolina..

“I’ve had a lot of calls trying to buy him,” McCarthy said, “but I just tell ‘em, ‘You’re wasting your time,’ and I hang up. I wouldn’t sell him now for anything.”

He nodded toward his gray colt and smiled.

“He’s a beautiful horse, isn’t he? He and I get along so well together. You just don’t know how much I enjoy this. You just don’t know.”

America needs to have General Quarters win the Kentucky. It wouldn’t solve any of our problems, but it would give us a sunbeam to grasp in these hard times.