By a nostril

 A bob of the head. A hoof striking the turf a millisecond before some other hoof. The flare of a nostril.

Choose your standard of measurement. Choose your method of description. And bag the metaphors, because this time a horse race wasn't a congressional race or a presidential race or a race for Chief Cook And Bottle-Washer of Succotash County.

This time a horse race was actually A HORSE RACE. 

This time it was three horses coming dead abreast to the wire, and the Kentucky Derby hadn't seen the like of it since 1947, or so the record books tell us. Closest three-horse finish since Jet Pilot nosed out Phalanx and Faultless that year. Even closer, actually.

Yesterday, it was another longshot, Mystik Dan at 18-1, who brought it home, and if you ever bet anything but longshots in the Derby again, may empty pockets be forever turned out. Saturday marked the third straight year a horse that went off at least 15-1 wound up with the blanket of roses, so call it officially a trend. 

Also call it officially one hell of a, well, horse race.

How close was it, down there at the end?

It was so close that if the Derby distance were a stride longer, Mystik Dan would have been the "place" horse and not the "win" horse.

Your winning horse would have been Sierra Leone, who was coming like a freight train with Forever Young half-a-stride back. All the momentum was with those two; Mystik Dan was just trying to get to the wire in front.

And he did. By that aforementioned bob of the head, planted hoof, flare of a nostril, as people watching in bars and restaurants all over America yelped "Whoaaa!"  

I know this because that's what everyone yelped where my wife and I were.

Hell of a horse race.