Mage core owner Ramiro Restrepo ‘over the moon’ after Kentucky Derby victory

The battery on Ramiro Restrepo’s phone went dead Saturday in the time it took him to work his way through the crowd from the grandstand to the winner’s circle at Churchill Downs.

That’s how quickly the deluge of congratulatory calls and text messages started coming after Mage won the Kentucky Derby. Restrepo is one of the colt’s core owners, and the well-wishers were plenty.

Miami Mayor Francis Suarez texted. So did Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago, actor John Ortiz, most of Restrepo’s former Alpha Sigma Phi fraternity brothers at the University of Miami, where he graduated in 2000, and pretty much anyone else with whom Restrepo ever came in contact. Or so it seemed.

Friends. Relatives. Some close. Some distant. Some familiar. Some not. By his own estimate, Restrepo figured he had received more than 2,000 texts and calls by the time he was finally able to resuscitate his phone.

“Nothing prepares you,” Restrepo said.

Mage’s victory resonated in South America and South Florida, in particular. Restrepo’s family roots trace to Colombia, and he grew up a racing fan in South Florida, attending races at Gulfstream Park and Hialeah, even as a small child.

Winning trainer Gustavo Delgado hails originally from Venezuela, and he and his son Gustavo Delgado Jr. — another of the core owners — now live in Aventura. Yet another primary owner, Sam Herzberg, is a real estate investor from Sunny Isles.

Jockey Javier Castellano won his first U.S. race at Calder Race Course in the summer of 1997, shortly after arriving from Venezuela, and spent the first few years of his career riding primarily in South Florida.

Even Mage, a Kentucky-bred whom Restrepo and Delgado Jr. partnered to buy out of a Maryland auction for $290,000 this time a year ago, has local roots.

As shoppers at nearby Pottery Barn and Crate and Barrel stores were purchasing decorative pillows, scented candles, leather furniture and whatnot this past winter, Mage (unbeknownst to them) was being housed and trained only a few hundred yards away at Gulfstream Park in Hallandale Beach.

It was at Gulfstream in late January where Mage made his racing debut — and won — and there in April where he finished second to Forte in the Florida Derby.

Now all signs are pointing for Mage to make his next start in the second leg of the Triple Crown, the Preakness Stakes in Baltimore on May 20.

Restrepo will be there, of course.

“I don’t think anything I’ve ever done could have prepared me for the root down the stretch,” Restrepo said of the colt’s come-from-behind victory in the Derby. “The feeling of crossing the wire first. And then the explosion of things that comes after …”

The Derby victory was worth $1.8 million to Mage’s owners. His value as future stallion is potentially worth many times that. But all that Restrepo wished to savor — at least for now — was Mage’s Derby.

Restrepo described the immediate aftermath as a “bedlam of hugging and kissing.”

“I was getting tackled by buddies like it was a rugby match, mosh-pitting and whooping and hollering,” he said of the trek to the winner’s circle. “Then the horse comes over, he’s got the roses, Javy [Castellano] is throwing roses in the air. People are screaming. People are crying.

“You’re thinking, ‘Where am I?’ It’s like you’re floating out of body. It’s like you’re Mick Jagger. We’re being feted like we’re celebrities. I’ve never had that happen to me.”

Restrepo remained in Louisville after the Derby, checking on the horse and responding — once his phone regained power — to all the well-wishers.

He intends to return to Miami this weekend for Mother’s Day, then head up to Baltimore for the Preakness.

“The rush is unexplainable,” he said. “Everyone’s over the moon.”