Bold Arrangement’s Show Takes From Bachelor Beau

Few horses have appeared on the 3-year-old scene that seem capable of scaring favored Snow Chief in the Kentucky Derby a week from Saturday at Churchill Downs.

From Thursday’s $265,600 Blue Grass Stakes, however, there emerged a horse that may see to it that the Derby is more than a two-minute waltz for Snow Chief.

The strange part is that this horse didn’t win the Blue Grass. Before 19,380 fans at Keeneland on a perfect, 70-degree spring day, Bachelor Beau won the final major Derby prep by three-quarters of a length over Bolshoi Boy. But it was Bold Arrangement, a late-running colt from across the Atlantic, who sent chills through the crowd with his dramatic stretch run.

Bold Arrangement, running on dirt for the first time in his life, missed second place by only a head, and in a stride or two he would have swallowed up and spit out both Bachelor Beau and Bolshoi Boy. The 1 miles of the Derby, an eighth of a mile longer than the Blue Grass, should suit Bold Arrangement even better than Thursday’s exercise.

So trainer Clive Brittain has done it again, shipping an English horse to the United States and sending the Yanks into a tizzy.

Brittain won the $2-million Breeders’ Cup Turf Stakes with the talented filly Pebbles last November at Aqueduct, and with Jupiter Island he has taken thirds in two of America’s toughest grass races, the Washington, D.C., International at Laurel and the San Juan Capistrano Handicap at Santa Anita.

But Brittain doesn’t know everything. After the Blue Grass, he had to be told by newsmen that Laffit Pincay, who had been scheduled to ride Bold Arrangement in the Derby if Pat Eddery wasn’t available, had agreed to ride Groovy at Churchill Downs instead.

With Eddery, who rode Bold Arrangement Thursday, scheduled to start a seven-day suspension in Europe two days before the Derby, Brittain indicated that his Derby rider would probably be Kenny Black, a troubled California jockey who’s just in the first stages of a comeback from cocaine and weight problems.

The 23-year-old Black met Bold Arrangement for the first time Tuesday when he worked the chestnut in a fast :59 4/5 for five furlongs over a muddy Keeneland strip.

“That kid would be over the moon if he gets to ride this horse in the Derby,” Brittain said. “If Pincay has another horse to ride, he jumped too soon. But I can understand that he would take another horse. A jockey as good as Pincay doesn’t make a living by being a professional backup rider.”

Ten Blue Grass winners have also won the Derby, but seldom has the first-place finisher in this race been as quickly dismissed as Bachelor Beau.

A $45,000 yearling purchased by Jack Tafel of Louisville and Dick Waterfield of Canadia, Tex., Bachelor Beau is a gelding sired by Raised Socially who had won only two races in his life, having lost six straight and three this year before Thursday. Bachelor Beau did, however, finish third in the Jim Beam Stakes at Latonia in his last start, running only two lengths behind Broad Brush, who went on to win the Wood Memorial.

Earning $171,290, about $50,000 more than his pre-race total, Bachelor Beau paid $41.80, $14 and $8. His win price was the biggest in the Blue Grass since Dust Commander paid $72.80 in 1970 and later won the Derby.

Bolshoi Boy, the second choice in the betting, paid $4.60 and $3.80. Bold Arrangement, who went off at 5-1, paid $5.

Icy Groom, the runner-up to Snow Chief in the Santa Anita Derby, and the 2-1 favorite here, finished fourth, about 3 lengths behind Bachelor Beau. With Son of the Desert scratched, there were 11 starters, and the order of finish after the first four was Blue Buckaroo, Pillaster, The Flats, Major Moran, Big Play, Strong Performance and Blandford Park.

Phil Hauswald, Bachelor Beau’s 28-year-old trainer, said that the gelding would run in the Derby. Bolshoi Boy appears to be headed for the Illinois Derby in late May instead of Louisville, and Eddie Gregson, who trains Icy Groom, said that a decision would be made today whether his colt will run in the Kentucky Derby.

Icy Groom stayed close behind the pace-setting Bolshoi Boy most of the way, but got squeezed between Pillaster and Bolshoi Boy on the far turn and was also bumped at the quarter pole. Eddie Delahoussaye, who must choose between riding California Derby winner Vernon Castle and Icy Groom if both run in the Kentucky Derby, said that the rough trip still wasn’t the difference between winning and losing.

“We might have been third without the trouble,” Delahoussaye said.

Bachelor Beau’s winning time of 1:51 1/5 on a fast-but-dull track was the third-slowest Blue Grass in the last 16 years.

“I let him set his own pace,” jockey Larry Melancon said of Bachelor Beau. “I thought I had a lot of horse at any time in the race. Any time you can let a horse set his own pace, you have a chance of winning.”

In the upper stretch, Bolshoi Boy appeared to at least draw even and perhaps even stick a nose in front of Bachelor Beau. But Bachelor Beau pulled away, impressing Richard Migliore, who was riding Bolshoi Boy.

“The winner might have won easier than it appeared because the jock never hit him,” Migliore said. “The winner was pricking his ears when I got to him.”

Bold Arrangement had made only one start this year, a third-place finish against older horses in the Racing Post Mile in England a month ago.

“If he had drawn a better post position (Bold Arrangement was next to the outside horse, Bolshoi Boy), it would have helped tremendously,” Brittain said. “You need luck and a run to win races, and we didn’t have that today.

“I wish to God we will have it at Churchill Downs. Three times he was in trouble today. He can only learn by this race, having the dirt hit him in the face for the first time. As far back as we were and to still get third, and in the Derby we’ll have another furlong. They’ve got us to beat in the Derby.”