It happened again Saturday.
That’s when Wilch, a decorated World War II veteran, learned the owners of Normandy Invasion — Rick and Betsy Porter, whom Wilch was an invited guest at the 2013 Kentucky Derby — had renamed a 2-year-old filly Mary Rita in honor of Wilch’s wife of 63 years who passed away three years ago.
Wilch, along with three other WWII veterans all involved in the Invasion of Normandy by Allied forces in 1944, attended the Derby at Churchill Downs and sat in Millionaires Row and watched as Normandy Invasion finished fourth in the Derby.
For most of his 20 years in the business, Porter has been naming horses to honor veterans. He was inspired by a trip he made to France in 1994, on the 50th anniversary of the invasion, to name his top colt in its honor last year.
They had told Wilch that they would name their next filly after Mary Rita. They were impressed that Wilch carried a photo of his wife and placed it on the table at all the Derby events. Wilch said his wife always wanted to attend the Derby. The Porters said they hope Wilch enjoys watching Mary Rita’s “exploits” on the track in the coming months and years.
He said he was “flabbergasted” when he received a letter Saturday from the Porters with a picture of the horse and her bloodline. He said the story is “growing like crazy.”
He said his late wife would be “very, very pleased with this.”
When Wilch, who served as a rifleman in the Army’s 29th Infantry Division, returned to the Middletown area after the war, he married Mary Rita Routson seven months later, on June 22, 1946. During the war, Wilch said he told himself that if he survived, he was going to marry Mary.
“I was the luckiest man in the world,” he said. “I didn’t want anybody else to get her.”
Now he hopes the field can’t catch the other Mary Rita.
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