Trainer Has a Low-Key Operation That Yields High-Dollar Results : Stute Methods Pay Dividends

In the top right-hand drawer of the desk in his stable office at Santa Anita, Mel Stute keeps a stenographer’s notebook. It’s a day-by-day, horse-by-horse account of how Stute’s public stable fared during 1984.

“We came into the year shooting for $2 million in purses,” Stute said. Then, flipping the pages of the book, he added: “We got off to an awfully slow start. January, $116,000. After February, the total was $237,000. We weren’t going to get our $2 million that way.”

But the Stute (rhymes with duty) horses made their move after February, accounting for about $2 million in purses in the last 10 months alone. That gives the stable a second straight $2-million year, placing Stute among the top 20 trainers in the country.

Many of the other trainers on that top-20 list deal in million-dollar yearlings and fancy foreign imports, flying them hither and yon for rich stakes races. Stute seldom goes out of town, he’s never paid $100,000 for a horse and most of his purchases and claims on behalf of 30 owners are for less than $50,000.

“I usually buy horses who are out of mares that I remember running,” Stute said. “I like mares who have either won a lot of races or who have shown speed. You start with speed, then you hope you can develop some horses who can carry it farther.”

The big winner in Stute’s stable in ’84 was Right Con, a colt who earned $337,100, more than half of that for finishing third in the $1-million Hollywood Futurity Dec. 16. If Stute has a Kentucky Derby hopeful, it is Right Con, since Private Jungle, who finished a half-length behind the undefeated Saratoga Six last August at Del Mar, has a knee injury and isn’t likely to return to the races until this summer.

Right Con, who was bred and is owned by Texan William R. Hawn, is scheduled to make his first start as a 3-year-old in the $100,000 California Breeders’ Champion Stakes at Santa Anita Jan. 12.

Stute, 57, is not a regular at Churchill Downs in May, but he had a smell of one Derby and the taste of another, and would like to go back.

In 1976, Stute had a horse named Telly’s Pop, whom he had bred and raised and sold for $6,000 to Telly Savalas and Hollywood producer Howard W. Koch. Honest Pleasure had been voted the best 2-year-old the year before, but Telly’s Pop ranked right behind him.

Telly’s Pop won the California Derby at Golden Gate Fields but developed knee problems and never made it to the Kentucky Derby. The invasion by Savalas and his star gelding might have been too much for Louisville, anyway.

“Telly’s Pop was the most exciting horse I’ve ever had,” Stute said. “Savalas was the complete showman. I remember when we ran in San Francisco, the fans showed up with placards with the horse’s name on them. Telly, who used to say, ‘It’s now show time,’ would kiss the hands of all the ladies. There was such a mob in the paddock for the California Derby that I could hardly get in to saddle the horse.”

Stute made it all the way to Churchill Downs in 1980 with Bold ‘n Rulling, a $21,000 buy who finished second to Temperence Hill in the Arkansas Derby and was a close-up fifth in the Blue Grass Stakes. Bold ‘n Rulling led the Kentucky Derby for six furlongs but took a bad step at the three-eighths pole, bowed a tendon and wound up sixth. He never raced again.

“I’d like to go back to the Derby some day,” Stute said. “What I enjoy most about training is the excitement of the business.”

And the handicapping. Stute is considered an astute handicapper and says he and one of his owners have hit Pick Sixes that paid $300,000 and $180,000. “Lately, though,” Stute said, laughing, “we can’t seem to pick ‘em anymore.”

First Balcony, who gave Stute his first $100,000 win in the Californian Stakes at Hollywood Park in 1961, was the result of a shrewd day of betting. Bob Schultz, a pitcher for the old Hollywood Stars who went into banking, hit a three- or four-horse parlay with Stute’s help and came away with $25,000.

“He told me to take the money and buy him a horse,” Stute said. “I got First Balcony for $20,000.”

Stute says the best horse he has ever trained was Double Discount, who if he hadn’t been a colt would have been mistaken for a mare in foal. But Double Discount seldom let his belly get in the way. He won the Burke Handicap at Oak Tree-Santa Anita in 1977, and his time of 1:57 2/5 for 1 miles on grass is still the world record.

Stute and his older brother, Warren, who’s also a trainer, were born in Fort Wayne, Ind., sons of a dairy farmer. When Mel was 7, the family moved to California, where a dairy business failed.

Mel thought he was a fairly good basketball player. “Back in Indiana, that’s all you did,” he said. He played at Covina High and was invited by Loyola University to attend a tryout that might have led to a scholarship.

Stute’s basketball career ended that day. “I didn’t have a chance,” he said. “Here I was, about 5-9, trying to mix it up with guys 6-3 and 6-4. I didn’t get the scholarship.”

Warren was already working at the race track, and Mel followed him, obtaining his trainer’s license in 1947 after he had served in the Army during World War II. Mel Stute’s first winner was in a $900 claiming race at Portland Meadows with a horse named Eggnog.

Stute got Eggnog and $300 by trading the only horse he owned. Three years later, the trainer made his debut at Santa Anita with a two-horse stable. Now he trains 32, but the principle for Mel Stute is the same: He makes inexpensive thoroughbreds go a long way.