GARY STEVENS GETS . . .A SECOND CHANCE : Young Jockey and Fast Account Team Up Again, but This Time Not as Longshots

When they turned for home in the Santa Anita Derby last April 6, it was a two-horse race. Or rather, a two-rider race.

On the rail, Skywalker was being urged on with all the skill that veteran Laffit Pincay, the track’s top winner in 11 of the previous 15 seasons, could command.

On Pincay’s right was Fast Account, ridden by newcomer Gary Stevens, a talented but largely unproven youngster who was just beginning to make an impact at Santa Anita.

Fast Account took the lead about a furlong from the finish and seemed a good bet to win, building a lead of almost a length. But Pincay was not beaten yet. He used the whip freely, Skywalker responded and, in a finish that had the crowd of 53,773 hoarse, won by the closest of margins, a nose.

In the end, age and experience had triumphed. For Pincay, 38, it was his seventh victory in the Santa Anita Derby. For Stevens, 21, it was a disappointment but not a bitter one. After all, he had taken a 25-1 longshot and almost come away with the biggest win of his career.

Stevens and Fast Account will join forces again Sunday, this time in the $1-million Santa Anita Handicap.

They won’t be the favorite, but they won’t be a longshot, either. Not after what both have accomplished in the last 11 months.

Fast Account, a 4-year-old brown colt owned and bred by William R. Hawn, a Dallas real estate developer, has turned out to be something of a paradox. Good enough to run with the best, he just doesn’t quite seem capable of being the best.

For example, in addition to his second-place finish in the Santa Anita Derby, Fast Account finished fourth in both the Kentucky Derby and the Belmont Stakes last year and third in both the San Fernando Stakes and Charles H. Strub Stakes this year.

In 18 lifetime starts, he has won three races, finished second six times and third three times. His earnings amount to $314,504.

Chris McCarron is Fast Account’s regular rider, but since McCarron will be riding Precisionist Sunday, Stevens will get another chance aboard the big, long-striding colt.

“He ran with the best 3-year-olds in the country last year and he always made good showings against them,” Stevens said earlier this week. “He’s only raced three times this year and he’s been racing against older horses, again the best in the country, but he’s been on the board in all of his starts.

“He looks like he’s really coming into himself and turning out to be a very nice horse.”

Given this feeling, it was not surprising that when trainer Patty Johnson asked Stevens to ride Fast Account in the Santa Anita Handicap, the jockey did not hesitate long before agreeing.

“I had a couple of other possibilities going into the race,” Stevens said, “Strawberry Road and another horse for (trainer) Charlie Whittingham, but they weren’t for-sure horses.

“We didn’t want to take the chance of sitting in the jockeys’ room in a million-dollar race. It was either obligate to him or take the chance of not riding in the race at all. The way it turned out, I think the horse has got a great chance of winning.”

A few years ago, winning the Big ‘Cap would have been unthinkable to Stevens. Even riding in it would have been too much to hope for, he thought.

Then came 1985, the break-through year. Despite being sidelined for 10 weeks because of shoulder and knee injuries suffered in an autumn fall, Stevens ended the year with more than $6.5 million in earnings.

He and McCarron are involved in a tight battle for the lead in the Santa Anita jockey standings. As of Wednesday night, McCarron had 61 wins and Stevens 47. It is an intense rivalry but a friendly one.

“We get along good,” Stevens said. “We’ve both been in this position before at other race tracks. You know that you’re going to get competition wherever you’re at. There’s no added electricity in the air in here (the jockeys’ room) between us or anything like that. I think maybe out on the race track there is. When you’re going head to head, you’re competing for all you’re worth.”

Stevens, who will turn 23 four days after Sunday’s race, said his fortunes have risen much more quickly than he expected.

“Things have moved a lot faster,” he said. “I can remember three years ago when my goals were just to ride in a race and win a race at Santa Anita. Over the last year or year and a half, my goals have changed quite a bit. They changed last year. One of my goals was to ride in the Kentucky Derby. I did that last year. Now one of my biggest goals is to win the Kentucky Derby someday.”

In the first of what likely will be many appearances at Churchill Downs, Stevens finished seventh aboard Tank’s Prospect last May. McCarron--on Fast Account--finished fourth.

Stevens also made his Santa Anita Handicap debut last year. It was not an auspicious one.

“I rode a real outsider (Ayman) in the race, a horse for (trainer) Laz Barrera,” Stevens said. “I was in front for the first mile, and then Lord at War came on in the last quarter of a mile. I outran one horse, I believe.”

Although Stevens has developed a reputation of bringing longshots home, the quality of the horses he is riding has risen dramatically in the last two years. Still, he isn’t yet getting the same choice of mounts as, say, McCarron, Pincay or Bill Shoemaker.

“I’ve ridden some top horses, one of them Strawberry Road, but I don’t think any rider is going to be riding several top horses at one time,” he said. “You ride maybe one or two top horses at a time, and that’s it. Right now, I’ve got three or four horses that are just on the edge of being the best in their category.

“As I win more races, the horses I’m riding are getting better. I’m getting more horses to ride and I’m getting more of a selection of good horses.”

Stevens makes it a point not to ride just one type of horse.

“I don’t prefer a speed horse over a come-from-behind horse or a middle-of-the-pack horse,” he said. “The biggest thing with me, I just don’t want to be labeled as a rider of one type of horse or the other. I’d like to be known as someone who can ride any type of horse.”

Or in any type of race. Big events such as Sunday’s 49th running of the Santa Anita Handicap don’t cause Stevens to change his routine.

“I try not to prepare for it any differently than I do for any other race,” he said. “I try to stay calm, not think about it too much, just go out like it’s any other race. Of course, inside you know it’s worth a lot more money and you’ve got more pressure on you, but you really can’t ride the race any different than you ride any other race. There’s no sense getting nervous or shook up about it.”

Still, Stevens would like nothing more than to add his name to the list of Santa Anita Handicap winners.

“It’s a very prestigious race to ride in,” he said. “A million dollars is a lot of money to run for. I guess those are the two biggest facts about the race, just the prestige and the money. And another thing is just all the great people that have been involved in the Big ‘Cap as far as great horses, great trainers, great riders that have won.

“To get an opportunity to win that race would be a great honor.”

It depends, of course, on Fast Account, and whether the colt wants to get to the wire first.

Although Johnson does most of the galloping and light workouts on Fast Account, Stevens gave the colt his last prerace workout last week, covering a mile on a sloppy main track in 1:43 flat. The clocking failed to impress anyone, but Stevens was not dissatisfied.

“He’s not a very good work horse,” he said. “It wasn’t a bad work on that race track. On a fast track, the fastest you’ll ever get that horse to work is 1:39 or 1:40. So on that track it wasn’t bad. They got what they needed to out of him.”

Entries and post positions for Sunday’s Big ‘Cap will not be known until Friday, but Stevens predicts a competitive race.

“It looks like a fairly wide open race to me,” he said. You’ve got Greinton coming off a big layoff, and Charlie Whittingham trains him and he’s known for getting his horses ready just off works alone. So he’s a possibility. Gate Dancer, if he goes, has been a great horse in the last two years. On any given day he can beat any horse in the country.

“It looks like it’s shaping up to be the race of the meet.”

For Stevens, it will be, if Fast Account this time can get his nose in front at the wire.