Churchill Downs Adds First Norman to List of 358 Derby Nominees

Tom Meeker, the president of Churchill Downs, ruled Wednesday that First Norman, the second-place horse in last year’s Hollywood Futurity, would be eligible for this year’s Kentucky Derby even though the 3-year-old colt’s name is not on the list of nominated horses.

“After researching the matter, we have found that it was an inadvertent mistake that the horse wasn’t nominated,” Meeker said. “We’ve taken immediate action to make him eligible.”

Deadline for Derby nominations was Feb. 15--at a cost of $200 per horse--and when the list of 358 nominees appeared this week, First Norman was not included.

First Norman is owned by Laz Barrera and Norman Silverman, and is trained by Albert Barrera, Laz’s son.

“When I saw that he wasn’t on the list, I couldn’t believe it,” Laz Barrera said. “Several weeks ago, before I went on vacation, I gave the horse’s name to Howard Battle. The horse is nominated for the Preakness and the Belmont (the other Triple Crown races). It would make no sense that I nominate him for those and not the Derby.”

Battle is a former Churchill Downs racing secretary who works at Keeneland in Kentucky. He confirmed that Barrera had told him to nominate First Norman for the Derby.

“I remember sitting with Laz in his box at Santa Anita, and that was the first horse he mentioned,” Battle said.

A Churchill Downs spokesman said that Battle had written First Norman’s name on the back of his Santa Anita program and then forgot to relay the name of the horse to Churchill Downs. Supplementary nominations are accepted for many major stakes races, but not for the Derby.

The most prominent horse in recent years not to be eligible for the Kentucky Derby was Codex, who won the Santa Anita Derby in 1980.

After the Santa Anita race, Wayne Lukas, Codex’ trainer, was stunned to learn that his colt hadn’t been nominated for the Kentucky Derby. Lukas thought he had nominated Codex, since he had nominated other horses, but the Churchill Downs official who took the nominations checked his notes and found that Codex had been omitted.

After missing the Derby, Codex went on to win the Preakness Stakes.

First Norman didn’t do much as a 2-year-old most of last year, but in December he won the Hollywood Prevue Stakes, then finished second to Stephan’s Odyssey in the Hollywood Futurity. He has been bothered by a splint problem this year and hasn’t started, but the Barreras believe a prep race will get him ready for the Santa Anita Derby April 6. The Kentucky Derby is May 4.

Laz Barrera trains two other Kentucky Derby hopefuls, Spectacular Love and Smarten Up. Spectacular Love, who beat divisional champion Chief’s Crown in last year’s Belmont Futurity but ended the year suffering from a throat ailment, was supposed to make his first start as a 3-year-old in Wednesday’s Baldwin Stakes at Santa Anita, but Barrera scratched him.

“It was only because of the post position,” Barrera said. “I didn’t want to take a chance with such a good horse.”

Spectacular Love drew the outside post in a 12-horse field.

Smarten Up, a 60-to-1 upset winner of the San Rafael Stakes, is scheduled to run Sunday in the San Felipe Handicap.

For Certain Doc, another horse accidentally left off the nomination list for the Kentucky Derby, won’t be getting a reprieve as First Norman did.

For Certain Doc, who beat a good field to win the Champagne Stakes at Aqueduct last year, was supposed to have been nominated by one of his owners, Harry Sockolow of Wayne, N.J.

Sockolow bought a new car on Feb. 13, two days before the deadline. He said the nominating blank was left in the glove compartment of his old car and he forgot about it.

Two days after the deadline, Sockolow suffered a heart attack. “By then, the last thing on my mind was the Kentucky Derby,” he said.