It’s an Education for Skywalker and Whittingham

Some college basketball players don’t spend as much time in class as Santa Anita Derby champion Skywalker has since arriving at Churchill Downs more than three weeks ago.

His tutor has been his trainer, Mike Whittingham, who has been leading the colt from his stall in Barn 41, past the grandstand to the paddock area each morning in preparation for the long walk he will take before today’s Kentucky Derby.

But when Skywalker’s groom told Whittingham Friday morning that it was time for another lesson, the trainer told him that school is out.

“He’s as ready as he’s ever going to be,” Whittingham said. “There’s no way we can prepare him for 150,000 people, a 5,000-piece band and a naked guy climbing up the flagpole.”

Whittingham isn’t even sure if he’s prepared.

He has heard all he wants to hear about the raucous scene at Churchill Downs on Derby Day from his wife, who is from Lexington. Whittingham, like Skywalker, has never experienced it.

As Whittingham, 39, is a successful and respected California trainer, some people might assume that bad fortune has prevented him from saddling a horse in the Kentucky Derby.

He prefers to think of it as good business.

Whittingham has as much respect as anyone for the tradition here. It’s just that he doesn’t think it’s particularly wise to race most 3-year-old horses in this race. Unfortunately for him, only 3-year-olds are allowed.

His philosophy in regard to the Kentucky Derby is hardly revolutionary.

His father, Charlie Whittingham, has been saying the same thing for years. Although he’s a Hall of Fame trainer, the elder Whittingham, 72, has entered only two horses here, Gone Fishin’ in 1958 and Divine Comedy in 1960.

He believes that instead of rushing 3-year-olds into a grueling 1-mile race such as the Derby, they should be handled with care so that they will be more productive at 4 and 5.

He can name a long list of horses that had successful 3-year-old campaigns but were too burned out to finish in the money in later years.

“That’s pretty much the way I feel,” Mike said Friday when some of his father’s comments about the Derby were repeated to him.

As a result, Skywalker has had only six career starts. In contrast, favored Chief’s Crown has had 12.

Skywalker has a good record, winning twice and finishing second once in four races this year.

Experts here probably would give him a better chance to win--he’s listed at 12-1 in the early line--if he had more experience. He hasn’t raced since April 6, when he won the Santa Anita Derby by a nose over Fast Account.

But Whittingham doesn’t want to win this race if it means losing the horse.

“You can’t have everything,” he said. “We’ve got a plan for this horse. We didn’t want to change it just so that we could come here.

“We want to allow the horse to grow. He still has a lot of maturing to do. He’s a good 3-year-old, but he’ll be a fabulous 4-year-old if we treat him right. His best days are coming up.

“We’re trying to do something that isn’t so easy. We would like to win this race, but we don’t want to cook the horse. We’re walking a tightrope. We’re trying to make right decisions in a game of educated guesses.”

So why enter Skywalker in the Derby?

“For a majority of 3-year-olds, it’s too much,” Whittingham said. “But the champions should be here, and I’ve felt this horse could be a champion since he broke his maiden in his first race as a 2-year-old.

“That’s when we designed our program. It included the Derby, but, if you’ll notice, we haven’t put too much pressure on him. We haven’t varied. Hopefully, it will pay off.”

Whittingham said he wasn’t sure whether he would enjoy Churchill Downs, particularly because of all the distractions in the week leading up to the Derby. But now that he’s here, he’s gotten into the spirit of it.

So have the 20 or so shareholders in Houston’s Oak Cliff Thoroughbreds, Ltd., which owns Skywalker.

They have buttons and T-shirts that read: “Sky Is The Limit” and “Skywalker Has the Force.” The horse was named for Luke Skywalker of the “Star Wars” trilogy.

Naturally, some people in this state believe the horse is named for a basketball player, the University of Kentucky’s Kenny (Sky) Walker.

Whittingham is one of five trainers with horses in the Derby who are sons of trainers. The others are Roger Laurin, John Veitch, Angel Penna Jr. and Butch Lenzini.

When Whittingham was in high school in Pasadena, he worked for his father. But Charlie didn’t pay him as much as the other hired hands because, he figured, he was giving Mike room and board for free.

Mike asked to go to Arlington Park with Charlie one summer. Charlie said it was OK, as long as Mike could find a way to get there. Mike shared a boxcar with Charlie’s horses, sleeping in the hay.

Once he arrived at Arlington Park, however, Mike discovered he could make more money selling tickets and parking cars than working for Charlie.

“I wasn’t as much into horses then as I was into money,” he said. “I bought all of my own meals and a car.”

Whittingham emphasized that his father wasn’t attempting to discourage him from following his footsteps.

“When some people repeat those stories, they make it sound like he was mean to me,” he said. “That wasn’t the case. He didn’t want to spoil me. He wanted me to be independent.”

Whittingham eventually learned to like the horses, deciding when he graduated from high school that he wanted to become a veterinarian.

But after earning credits from four different colleges, he determined that higher education wasn’t for him.

He became a trainer.

Busy with his own horses at Hollywood Park, Charlie won’t be here to see Mike in his first Kentucky Derby.

Asked if he will call his father before the race, Whittingham said: “I don’t think I’ll have time.”

After the race?

“Maybe,” he said. “I hope I have a good reason.”