LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Twenty years riding on the Kentucky circuit, Brian Hernandez Jr. watched jockey Calvin Borel win countless races – including a couple of Kentucky Derbies – with rail-skimming rides that were the difference between winning and losing. Saturday, in the 150th Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs, with its richest-ever pot of $5 million, Hernandez gave Mystik Dan a Borel-like ride he used to record a thrilling nose victory over the wide-rallying Sierra Leone, who was a nose better than Japan’s Forever Young. The victory on Mystik Dan capped a historic 24-hour period for Hernandez and trainer Kenny McPeek. The victory in the Kentucky Derby came one day after Hernandez won the Oaks on Thorpedo Anna with an inside, front-running trip. Hernandez, 38, became the just the eighth jockey to win both the Oaks and Derby in the same year. The last to do it was Borel, who won the 2009 Kentucky Oaks on Rachel Alexandra and the Derby on Mine That Bird, the second of Borel’s three career Derby wins. McPeek, 61, is the third trainer to win the Oaks and the Derby in the same year, a feat accomplished for just the fourth time in the 150-year history of both races. Ben Jones did it twice, in 1949 and 1952. Herbert “Derby Dick” Thompson did it in 1933 when the Derby and Oaks were held two weeks apart. “For three weeks, I felt like we were going to win both races,” McPeek said. “I can’t tell you why.” Mystik Dan, a son of Goldencents, a $10,000 stallion, out of the dam Ma’am, who went 4 for 23, is a homebred for owners Lance and Sharilyn Gasaway, Daniel Hamby III, and 4G Racing. Valley View Farm also is an owner. Mystik Dan is named for Daniel Hamby’s father and his first business operation, Mystik Tape. Mystik Dan, who was coming out of a third-place finish in the Arkansas Derby, needed every ground-saving inch of his trip to hold off Sierra Leone by a nose in the closest Derby finish since Grindstone beat Cavonnier in 1996. :: Bet the races with a $200 First Deposit Match + FREE All Access PPs! Join DRF Bets. Breaking from post 3, Hernandez was able to guide Mystik Dan to the rail immediately as Dornoch, in post 1, and Sierra Leone, in post 2, were slow away from the gate. Hernandez stayed right on the rail throughout, racing eighth into the first turn, then found himself fourth down the backside sitting behind Track Phantom, Just Steel, and Fierceness, who were three across the track after a half-mile in 46.63 seconds and six furlongs in 1:11.31. Sierra Leone, down the backside, was 17th, 12 1/4 lengths back and four to five wide. Coming to the top of the stretch, Hernandez shot Mystik Dan inside of Track Phantom and turning for home he had gotten clear. Mystik Dan came to the eighth pole with a two-length advantage while Sierra Leone, who rallied seven wide in the stretch, and Forever Young, who also was in the back of the pack, were running in tandem down the center of the track. Sierra Leone, who has a tendency to lug in, did just that and bumped with Forever Young in midstretch. Still, the two kept coming, but Mystik Dan kept going as well and got to the wire first. Mystik Dan covered the 1 1/4 miles in 2:03.34 and returned $39.22 for a $2 win bet. He was given a 100 Beyer Speed Figure. “On the second turn, everybody outside of Track Phantom started piling up, piling up, piling up, I had a nice little pocket,” Hernandez said. “Once Track Phantom moved off the rail just a half-a-step, we were able to get through there. We might have taken out a little bit of the outside fence, but that’s okay. Once he cut the corner, he got a little separation on the closers that were forced to go around the horses that were tiring and he was able to hold them off.” Of Hernandez, McPeek said. “He’s the difference in winning and losing today for sure.” Once he crossed the finish line, Hernandez said he wasn’t completely sure he had won. It took two minutes before an outrider informed him that he did, in fact, win. “That was the longest two minutes in sports,” Hernandez said. “From fastest two minutes to the longest by far.” For Chad Brown, trainer of Sierra Leone, it wasn’t nearly as long. He watched the replay on the big board in the infield and even though he felt his horse got the better of the bob, Brown knew he was a few inches short before the numbers were posted. “When you have a deep closer like that, sometimes you’re going to have to go through some traffic and go wide,” said Brown, who finished second in the Derby for the second time in six years. “I’ll have to look at the trip a little closer, but it doesn’t really matter, he got beat a nose.” Sierra Leone, as he had done in previous victories in the Risen Star and Blue Grass stakes, did lean again and bumped with Forever Young, the undefeated winner of the U.A.E. Derby. Tyler Gaffalione, the rider of Sierra Leone, felt that lugging in cost him the race. “I had a hard time keeping him straight, and that definitely cost us,” Gaffalione said. “He gives you everything, very responsive, but he loses concentration.” :: Get the Inside Track with the FREE DRF Morning Line Email Newsletter. Subscribe now.  Forever Young came the closest of any Japan-based horse to winning the Kentucky Derby. His connections did not comment after the race other than to relay that the horse would be going back to Japan along with his countrymate, T O Password, who finished fifth, 4 3/4 lengths behind fourth-place finisher Catching Freedom. Following T O Password in the order of finish were Resilience, Stronghold, Honor Marie, Endlessly, Dornoch, Track Phantom, West Saratoga, Domestic Product, Epic Ride, Fierceness, Society Man, Just Steel, Grand Mo the First, Catalytic, and Just a Touch. Fierceness, the 3-1 favorite under John Velazquez, got the forward position his connections were hoping for and didn’t have much of an excuse for his 15th-place finish, 24 1/4 lengths behind the winner. “The only thing that I didn’t like was he was keen,” Velazquez said. “I had to help him the first two jumps and then I tried to grab him, [Epic Ride] came to him on the outside and he got pretty keen on the first turn. I tried to settle the best I could, came to the five-sixteenths pole, and he didn’t put up a fight.” McPeek, who had been winless with nine previous Derby starters, has now won all three Triple Crown races – taking the 2002 Belmont with Sarava, and the 2020 Preakness with the filly Swiss Skydiver. McPeek on Saturday ruled out Thorpedo Anna from running back in the Preakness, and he will monitor Mystik Dan’s condition before committing him to the Preakness on May 18 at Pimlico. “Somebody told me years ago, no fast moves, never make a decision until you absolutely positively have to,” he said. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.