Old-Timers Hitch a Ride to Kentucky

The Sunshine Boys feel great. Like a million bucks, in fact. Like two million, almost.

Their favorite 3-year-old--the 3-year-old favorite--is too heavy to bounce on their knees, but grandfatherly Ben Rochelle and Carl Grinstead will be happy to give the little darling a piggyback ride, all the way to Louisville, if only he will nod his diamond-studded head and assure them that, yes, he is going to win the Kentucky Derby.

Snow Chief, California’s black beauty, took the Santa Anita Derby by six lengths Sunday, definitely giving Mr. Rochelle and Mr. Grinstead the horse to beat for the May 3 race at Churchill Downs.

The Sunshine Boys already have made more than $1.7 million off this horse, a horse that they practically bought for a song. But who better knows the value of a song than Mr. Rochelle, who is 75 and a former vaudeville song-and-dance man?

The owners were warned that a horse sired by Reflected Glory might not turn out to be Secretariat. Without the proper pedigree, they were told, you might get an OK horse, but not a Kentucky Derby horse.

The trouble with that, said the old vaudevillian, was that Snow Chief didn’t know his pedigree was inadequate.

“Snow Chief can’t read,” Mr. Rochelle said.

Besides, said his partner, Reflected Glory wasn’t so bad--not bad at all. He even won the Flamingo Stakes in 1966. “Reflected Glory was a good horse,” Mr. Grinstead said. “He was a better horse than everyone gave him credit for.”

As a matter of fact, Mr. Grinstead continued--not missing a beat, as an old vaudevillian’s partner must not--better horses than Reflected Glory have tried to sire champions and failed. “He had a lot of foals last year. But everyone (talks as though) Snow Chief was the only one,” Mr. Grinstead said. “If you go down through the records, I guarantee you Northern Dancer probably hasn’t had five million-dollar horses. Right now, Reflected Glory has one that I know of, and a couple that are pretty close.”

Alas, oh dad, poor dad, Reflected Glory’s child-bearing days appear to be numbered. He is 22, and just found out the other day--well, a human being found out, of course--that he is infertile. Reflected Glory can still mate, but if he wants kids, he will have to adopt.

So, it is up to Snow Chief to wear the genes in the family. With five big wins in a row now--the Florida Derby, the El Camino Real Derby at Bay Meadows, the Breeders’ Champion Stakes at Santa Anita, the Hollywood Futurity and this latest one--California’s great black hope goes to Kentucky now with a chance to regain prestige for “Cal-breds,” as Mr. Rochelle refers to them.

California horses haven’t done so hot in the Derby. Their reputations have suffered for it. And Santa Anita Derby winners have not done so well, either, only one of them winning the big one at Churchill Downs since 1969.

But watch out for this one, old diamond head, the black colt with the white diamond-shaped blaze in the middle of his head, the dark horse that technically has to be listed as “brown” or “bay” because race track types insist that practically every inch of a black horse be black. This one might be the most talented horse in California since Trigger.

The horse has been amazing, considering his background. “Snow Chief turned 3 on March 17, on St. Patrick’s Day, and he’s 29th on the all-time money list,” Mr. Grinstead said. “He’s outrunning most heritages.”

And so are the two septuagenarians who own him. For an ex-trouper from Beverly Hills and a retired electrical engineer from Chula Vista, these two gentlemen are not doing too badly against the famous names and superpowers of thoroughbred racing.

Trainer Mel Stute, a mere babe of 58, is not doing badly, either. He has seen Snow Chief run 1 1/8 miles, as he did Sunday, without trouble, and believes he can go any distance, even the strenuous one of Belmont, without trouble. He has seen him carry 122 pounds, as he did Sunday, and has seen him carry 126, as he must do at Churchill Downs.

Even the long trip to Louisville doesn’t worry the trainer.

“He does everything well,” Stute said. “He ships fine. He eats whatever’s edible and drinks whatever’s drinkable.”

This is a super horse, then?

“If you ask me, yes,” Stute said. “As I’ve said before, if he could cook, I might leave my wife.”

Hang around an old vaudevillian long enough and the routines are bound to rub off.