Mike Smith hugged Dena Glatt in the winner’s circle after ridingSo Happy to victory in the San Vincente Stakesat Santa Anita Park in January, a joyous sign that the unheralded horse trained by her husband, Mark, might be better than expected.

“We were all excited about it,” Smith said. “And then tragedy struck.”

Dena Glatt died of heart failure just over a month later, at the age of 57. Mark now wears a bracelet with some of her ashes in it so “she’ll always be with me.”

So Happy is Mark Glatt’s first Kentucky Derby horse in more than 30 years in the business, potentially the second-generation horseman’s shining career achievement coming at a time of overwhelming grief.

“Some of it’s amazing. Some of it’s so sad,” Smith said Monday. “It’s just an emotional roller coaster, I can imagine, for Mark. He’s so happy on one hand, and then he’s so sad on the other because Dena’s not with him. But she is. I really feel like she is. I feel her presence, and I know how much she liked this horse.”

Nearly everything about this underdog journey makes So Happy a fan favorite, starting before he was even foaled. Decades ago, longtime breeder Leverett Miller bought his wife, Linda, a filly she named So Divine. He then took a suggestion that one of his mares, So Cunning, would be a good match with sire Runhappy.

“I said ‘OK, we’ll try it,’” recalled Miller, now 94.

The resulting colt was So Happy, initially sold for $12,000 and then $20,000 as a yearling sale as recently as October 2024. Even the $150,000 Glatt paid for him as a 2-year-old in training in March 2025 is a bargain for a thoroughbred of Triple Crown quality.

“The horse doesn’t know what you purchased him for, thank goodness,” said Ana Maron, who co-owns the horse with husband Hans and Robert Norman’s Norman Stables.

Combining the parents’ names along with a joke about Glatt’s stoic public disposition led to the moniker So Happy, which is what he has made everyone around him since his first race at Del Mar on Nov. 22. He finished first in a field of 10, leading Smith to wonder: “Who is this guy, man? Where is this coming from?”

Source: Drudge Report