Horse Racing / Bill Christine : Bedouin’s Ninth Is Music to His Owners’ Ears

The surprise of the 1984 Kentucky Derby was Bedouin. Not because of what the 3-year-old colt did in the race--he finished 15th in a 20-horse field--but because he was running at Churchill Downs at all.

Sending Bedouin to the Derby was a last-minute decision by Dick Mandella, who trained the colt for the late Max Gluck’s Elmendorf Farm.

Bedouin had won an allowance race on the grass at Hollywood Park nine days before the Derby, so Mandella put him on a plane to Louisville on the Tuesday of Derby week.

Bedouin went into the Derby with no stakes wins, three lifetime wins and only that grass victory as a 3-year-old. He went off in the Derby at relatively low 9-1 odds only because he was bunched in the mutuel field with six other starters that the Churchill Downs handicapper thought had the least chance.

“You might say that I just had a wild idea that we had a chance,” Mandella said, looking back on his Derby experience. If Bedouin had won, he would have been the first roan to win the Derby.

A lot of things have happened to the horse since that May, most of them humiliating if Bedouin only knew, but this season at Santa Anita has turned into the highlight of his career.

Bedouin beat $50,000 claimers last Sunday for his fifth win of the meeting, which puts him within one victory of tying the record set in 1968 by Dandini, then matched by Page in 1971 and Natural Splendor in 1984.

Mandella no longer trains Bedouin, whose 15th-place finish in the Derby was the start of a 16-race losing streak. Bedouin dropped from stakes company to the ranks of $20,000 claimers by October of last year, when he was claimed by trainer Jude Feld.

As Bedouin’s losses continued to pile up, he sank to the bottom at Santa Anita, but on Jan. 17, the day Frank Rappa claimed him for $10,000, he won the race, his first victory in more than 20 months.

Since then, Bedouin has won four of seven starts and earned $57,000 for Rappa, his wife Margaret and their trainer, John Buonaiuto.

Bedouin has become a last-race special, having scored all four of his wins for the Rappas in the ninth race of the day. Shadows start to shroud Santa Anita then, but Bedouin is easy to spot because of his silvery coat as he makes his stretch run in the middle of the track.

By the way, Bedouin is a gelding now, the operation having been performed, as well as Mandella can remember, shortly after the ’84 Derby.

“That’s what he got for running so bad in the Derby,” Mandella joked.

Bedouin is the second bargain Frank Rappa has found in racing. The other is First Advance, a mare he bought for $7,200 as a 2-year-old. First Advance won the San Gorgonio Handicap at Santa Anita in 1984 and had earned more than $350,000 when she was retired. Rappa, who operates three Italian restaurants, also trained First Advance, having obtained his license in 1983.

Explaining how he claimed Bedouin, Rappa said: “I had been looking for a horse for a month. I liked his breeding and I liked the way he looked. I didn’t ask anybody about him, I just claimed him. I took a chance, but I figured that if he was sound, he was worth it.”

Bedouin was sired by Al Hattab, who had more than 35 stakes winners before he died in 1983.

As far as Craig Phillips is concerned, Bedouin’s biggest win was on Feb. 1, the first time he ran for the Rappas. Phillips used Bedouin in the final race on his Pick Nine ticket, and the payoff was a record $1.9 million.

Because Bedouin has been moving up in class, from $10,000 to $50,000 claimers, he has not been favored in any of his winning races. He has paid 11-1, 14-1 and 19-1, and last Sunday, winning by a half-length, he was 7-2, the fourth betting choice in the field.

“They don’t believe this horse when they see a little trainer training him,” Rappa said. “The bettors always go for the big trainers. They say, ‘Who is this guy? He’s a pizza man, he doesn’t know what he’s doing.’ Well, I’m laughing all the way to the bank.”

Rappa said Bedouin would probably try to tie the Santa Anita record in a 1-mile grass race for $62,500 claimers April 13. That’s the last race of the day, of course, and the spot that usually seems to work for Bedouin--a Derby bust in ’84 but a claiming king in ’86.

Racing Notes Except for Snow Chief, Nevada oddsmakers don’t think much of the rest of the Santa Anita Derby field as far as the Kentucky Derby is concerned. North Swanson, the linemaker for Sports Form, has Snow Chief as the Kentucky Derby favorite at 5-1. The Kentucky Derby odds on other expected starters in Sunday’s Santa Anita Derby are Ferdinand, 25-1; Variety Road and Icy Groom, both 40-1; Big Play, 50-1; and Imperious Spirit, 60-1. Jetting Home, another probable for the Santa Anita Derby, is not eligible for the Triple Crown races. . . . Tasso, running Saturday in the Gotham at Aqueduct, is 6-1 to win the Kentucky Derby. Badger Land, favored in Saturday’s Flamingo at Hialeah, is 10-1, the same as Pillaster, who will probably run against Tasso.

Chris McCarron dedicated his winning ride aboard Turkoman in last Saturday’s Widener at Hialeah to jockey Miguel Rivera’s 9-year-old son, David Lee, who is suffering from leukemia. When McCarron arrived at Hialeah, he had a bag of gifts for young Rivera. There were a painted dish with McCarron aboard a horse, an autographed copy of Bill Shoemaker’s book, and a Santa Anita brochure signed by about 20 riders. . . . Trainer Gary Jones couldn’t believe his Turkoman would overtake Darn That Alarm and Gate Dancer in the stretch. “At the sixteenth pole, I had given up,” Jones said. . . . Halo Folks, a four-time winner at Santa Anita this season, was scratched from Wednesday’s El Conejo Handicap because of a 101-degree fever. . . . Kenny Black, who hadn’t ridden in California since late 1984 because of weight and drug problems, had two mounts Wednesday at Santa Anita. He will move on to Keeneland and Canterbury Downs soon. “Horses run for Kenny,” says trainer David Bernstein. “When trainers heard that he was coming back, they were anxious to give him some mounts.”

Rafael Meza, who finished second in the Santa Anita Handicap and won the New Orleans Handicap with Herat, will ride the 800-pound colt in Friday’s Fortune Handicap at the New Orleans Fair Grounds. Frank Olivares will ride trainer Bobby Frankel’s Proof in the stake. Meza won the Westchester Handicap last Friday with Frankel’s Garthorn. . . . Before trainer Mel Stute saddles Snow Chief in the Santa Anita Derby, he will try to win Friday’s Sorority with Sari’s Heroine at Golden Gate Fields. . . . Skywalker, winner of last year’s Santa Anita Derby but sidelined since breaking a leg, is scheduled to run Sunday at Santa Anita.