Serena’s Song What’s In A Name? Plenty, In Filly’s Case

It will be a fine enough story on its own if Serena’s Song becomes the fourth filly in 121 years to win a Kentucky Derby, but I thought you might be interested in another part of the story.

Bob and Beverly Lewis of Newport Beach, Calif., own Serena’s Song. They are here for one reason. While driving across California last Saturday, they decided to take the grand plunge this Saturday. They would run a female thoroughbred against males in the classic that only three fillies - Regret in 1915, Genuine Risk in 1980 and Winning Colors in 1988 - have won.

Even if Serena’s Song does not win but Timber Country does, the filly will share the prize money because the Lewises own part of Timber Country as well, and those horses will run as an entry.

Lewis is a 70-year-old operator of two beer distributorships. When he and his wife acquired the filly, Bob told Beverly to think of a name. The filly’s sire is Rahy, and her dam is Imagining, but Beverly couldn’t come up with any satisfactory derivation of that.

“She sort of liked the name Serena,” Bob said, standing in a shower of sunshine on the backstretch of Churchill Downs where many dreams die but some come true.

“No special reason. Wasn’t a family name or anything like that. Anyway, we submitted it to the Jockey Club, but the name Serena was taken. So, Beverly came up with Serena’s Song, because she thought it had a bit of a ring to it.”

The filly turned out to have more than a bit of class. She has won five consecutive stakes. She beat seven colts in the April 1 Jim Beam Stakes at Turfway Park. She will have 18 to beat in the Derby.

The other side of the story?

Switch to Correctionville, Iowa. Its population is 900, and it is the home town of a pilot-balloonist-farmer named Gary Waldman and his wife Cheryl.

A dozen years ago, Cheryl Waldman gave birth to a daughter who was technically dead for 21 minutes until she was miraculously revived. She was left a quadriplegic.

They named her Serena.

Waldman also operates hot-air balloons. He took Serena for a ride, and she loved it so much that he had the basket altered so wheelchair-bound people could get into it easily, and now, Serena and a lot of others have taken some happy rides that way.

The Waldmans had never even heard of the Lewis’ filly when they settled on a name for their balloon.

The name they picked: Serena’s Song.

The Waldmans, who are far from rich, also started a small fund to help other disadvantaged children.

The Waldmans finally heard about the filly. They wrote the Lewises just to tell them of the coincidence in names. They asked for nothing, but Beverly Lewis asked Bob, “Why don’t we give part of the filly’s purses to the fund?”

He agreed on the instant.

Then the Lewises were driving across California to see Waldman at a balloon show when they decided to go for the big one. “I said, ‘Hey, let’s take a shot at the Derby,”’ Bob Lewis said, “and we called the trainer, D. Wayne Lukas, and he said, ‘OK, we’ll go for it.”’

Corey Nakatani will be riding Serena’s Song, but there will be another presence around the filly as she circles the mile and a quarter of brown loam.

The presence is called kindness.