I mean, how can I not root for the guy with that story?
The 152nd Kentucky Derby kicks off this afternoon, and the favorite in the race is a 3-year old colt named Renegade. The horse has an impressive pedigree, with his father Into Mischief’s offspring having already won the Derby twice.
But even more impressive might be the story of the horse’s owner, Robert Low.
Low is the billionaire founder of Prime Inc., an American trucking company whose tractor trailers you’ve no doubt seen on the roads. But at one point, he was facing a lengthy prison sentence – until he was acquitted thanks to cough drops.
Back in 1983, about a decade after Low had founded his trucking company, he was on a hunting trip in Colorado with his son and several friends in Colorado. But while the group was on their way up a canyon to the campsite, according to court records, Low “became increasingly anxious and apprehensive, and had feelings of unreality.”
He reportedly began to believe he was being “tricked” and questioning his stepson about where they were going, and eventually stopped his truck. When his friends stopped and got out with him, Low apparently demanded that they all kneel in prayer, and then had one of his friends take over driving his truck to the campsite.
Once the group reached the campsite, Low became convinced that he was dead and had gone to hell. When his friends told him to go lay down in the cabin while they finished setting up, he decided that he was a corpse and had to “redeem himself in order to get to heaven.”
When he went back outside, Low demanded that they move his tent:
“We’re going to bring it up here. We’re going to raise the temple here.”
But he also began to get agitated with a friend in the group named Duane, telling him that he was “the devil” and demanding that he look him in the eye.
Low then went to get his rifle, but by this point his family realized something was wrong and took the gun from him. So he unbuckled his hunting knife and went back to his tent, where he stabbed Duane in the back.
Well Duane was taken to the hospital while the group subdued Low, who had soaked his own tent in kerosene and lit it on fire while sitting inside. He eventually left the tent and fell asleep on the ground, and eventually went to sleep in the cabin for the night, where police arrested him the next day.
After being taken into custody, Low told police that his nightmare was finally over. And after being examined, doctors realized that Low had been taking 40-50 HOLD brand cough drops per day for the last several months, at first because of a cough but continuing in an effort to stop smoking.
Doctors testified that because the cough drops contained a drug called dextromethorphan hydrobromide, Low had developed a psychotic disorder known as “organic delusional syndrome” or “toxic psychosis,” and was unable to tell right from wrong at the time of the attack.
Well a court agreed with the experts, and found Low not guilty because he was suffering from involuntary intoxication from the cough drops – and therefore, didn’t have the required intent to commit the crime.
The case ultimately went all the way up to the Colorado Supreme Court, which “disapproved” of the court’s acquittal, but Low wasn’t retried in the case due to double jeopardy. And since then, he’s gone on to turn his trucking company into a multi-billion dollar business a fleet of nearly 10,000 trucks.
He’s been in the horse racing business for three decades, and has entered plenty of horses in the Kentucky Derby over the years. Low is still chasing his first win in the Run for the Roses, which very well could come today with Renegade, who current sits at 4-1 odds to win the race.
But his biggest win may have come in court over 40 years ago – all because he took too many cough drops.
