Nick Bush Dreaming, Always, and Succeeding

It has been a surreal couple weeks for exercise rider Nick Bush, but he effortlessly makes it his own personal wonderland. The regular morning pilot of GI Kentucky Derby winner Always Dreaming (Bodemeister) has gone from unassuming and well-liked backside regular to frontside media darling, seamlessly transferring his Cheshire Cat grin from atop talented racehorses to the rabbit hole of endless camera lenses covering the middle leg of the Triple Crown.

Born and raised in the Thoroughbred world's beating heart in Midway, Kentucky, Bush knew that horses made his chest pound hardest. Often following his father and grandfather around while they worked as grooms at Parrish Hill Farm, it was not until a blacksmith named Sam Hackel came to the farm and put him on the spot that he saw the next step.

“He asked me what I was going to do and then told me I should get into riding,” Bush, 30, said. “I got into it and really loved it. This was about 2001 or 2002 and I started doing it full time once I got out of high school. I worked at a training center, then with Donald Hughes at Ellis Park while I was still in school and ultimately John Ward at Saratoga. After that, I worked with Patrick Biancone for a year until I started working for Todd Pletcher.”

Bush is not your run-of-the-mill morning rider. His demeanor demands equal parts seriousness and smile-laden optimism–each of which he is quick to offer–and he appears to understand that he is both part of the machine and an important instrument in and of himself. He is quick to recognize that this recent flush of publicity is both innately foreign and unexpected, while focusing on the task at hand above all. In the beginning, though, things were different. It was just about the enjoyment of riding horses–and he remembers that.

“I wanted to be a jockey, but I wish someone would have told me when I was 16 to cut back on my eating,” he laughed. “Eventually my ambition to do it kind of lessened, but I still love the work. It's tough to maintain 115 [pounds] or so and still maintain strength and I don't think that I would want to do it if I was only 50% of my maximum strength. I'm very happy with what I'm doing now and Todd is an amazing person to work for.”

The go-to set of hands in the morning for the country's most dominant stable in recent years, Bush has been the man responsible for galloping and working horses such as Daredevil, Princess of Sylmar, Mshawish, Revolutionary, Awesome Maria and Liam's Map. While quick to hold the last listed as the likely best he has been on, he just as swiftly speaks the equal praises of this year's Kentucky Derby winner, whose preparations for Saturday's $1.5-million GI Preakness S. have him superbly confident.

“I have to say my favorite horse to get on was Liam's Map, who was amazing to ride and was also the best, on top of that. Always Dreaming is like that, too,” Bush explained. “He has his little quirks about him, but other than those, he feels really solid underneath you. He's a nice horse who hits the ground well and is simply a good horse. When he wants to get into his little antics he'll try to bully you and throw his head up and run off, but you just have to sit and be patient with him. Other than that, he's a laid-back horse. In the stall and on the way to the track, he's nice and relaxed, but sometimes he gets out there and gets happy.

“Hopefully he runs his race in the Derby,” he continued. “If he runs that race, I think he's going to be very tough to beat. He's just training extremely well right now.”

It is rare that an exercise rider can say that a Kentucky Derby winner they sit upon every morning is not the undisputed best they have ridden, but such is the reality of working for a barn like that of Pletcher. Still with time to prove himself as the best Bush has been on–a Preakness victory will surely augment that argument–Always Dreaming is a prime example of the excellence Pletcher seems to push his horses and staff like Bush to represent.

“I was working for trainers before, but Todd was always the man winning on a clip and traveling the country being successful,” Bush reflected. “I figured if you can't beat them, I guess you have to join them. In 2006, I was jobless after Patrick Biancone. I walked around looking for mounts and Seth Benzel hired me, which led to Todd. At the time, Todd had horses like Octave and Rags to Riches in the barn and I basically started working for him and traveling around with him. I wanted to focus on working hard to make my way up, while showing him that I wanted to get on some good horses.

“Todd is a great person to look up to,” he continued. “He's a true professional and a lot of people respect him. Watching him and modeling myself after him has been great because he's not just top-notch, he's a good guy, a funny guy and is approachable–which a lot of people don't know. He really is awesome to work for and is an overall cool guy.”

Cool guy, indeed. With his eyes wide and his gut reactions so quick to express himself eloquently, Bush's coolness is visibly apparent in this easily overwhelming Triple Crown crunch. He somehow, amid all of this, manages to effortlessly represent some of the most viscerally buoyant and determined members of his generation. He is not simply riding Always Dreaming toward what could be history in the making, he is constructing paths for those who may dream to be where he is now.

“I want to keep moving forward,” he concluded. “I don't know if I want to one day be a trainer, but it's not off the radar. Hopefully this is another step up. It's going to be exciting.”