REDEMPTION AT PREAKNESS? : Snow Chief Is Melting as a Super Horse of ’86

What happened?

That’s been a nagging question since Snow Chief’s 11th-place finish as the favorite in the Kentucky Derby.

Two weeks later, still not knowing the answer, trainer Mel Stute will give Snow Chief a chance for redemption Saturday when he starts the 3-year-old colt in the 111th running of the Preakness Stakes here at Pimlico.

Snow Chief won’t be the favorite this time. His abysmal performance in the Derby took care of that. In what looms as a seven-horse Preakness field, Snow Chief will probably be the fourth betting choice, behind Derby winner Ferdinand, Wayne Lukas’ entry of Badger Land and Clear Choice, and Broad Brush.

Trainers say that there are 1,000 ways to lose a horse race, and there are at least six theories as to why Snow Chief failed in the Derby.

Before becoming the flop of Churchill Downs, Snow Chief had won 9 of 13 starts and was on a five-race winning streak. He had also run second twice and third once, and his only finish off the board had been a sixth last summer at Hollywood Park, where he came out of the race with sore shins.

These are the theories:

--In training since last August, Snow Chief peaked while winning the Florida and Santa Anita derbies early this year. When he arrived in Kentucky, he was a horse on the way down, as they say on the backstretch.

--Snow Chief hadn’t had a race in a month, a long layoff for horses that usually win the Derby.

--Snow Chief didn’t like the track at Churchill Downs.

--He needed more training in Kentucky and less in California.

--Snow Chief isn’t a mile-and-a-quarter horse.

--Snow Chief was too close to a punishing pace in the early going.

--Class finally caught up with the cheaply bred colt, who was attempting to become only the fourth California-bred winner in Derby history.

Some of these theories have little validity.

During his winning streak, for instance, Snow Chief ran to three of his five victories at about 30-day intervals. Ferdinand won the Derby after not having raced for a month.

Jockey Alex Solis thought that Snow Chief was moving well, and they were in contention until they reached the quarter pole, which isn’t a sign of a horse not adjusting to a track.

Snow Chief’s humble breeding was enough for him to beat Ferdinand, Badger Land, Icy Groom and Mogambo earlier in the year. All four of those horses finished from 3 3/4 to 19 lengths ahead of Snow Chief in the Derby.

A month before their rematch in Louisville, Ferdinand had finished third, seven lengths behind Snow Chief, in the Santa Anita Derby. That’s a swing of 26 lengths.

Immediately after the Derby, Stute was second-guessing himself about the way Snow Chief had been prepared for the race. This week, he has still been asking himself whether it was wise to work Snow Chief only once over the Churchill Downs strip. Snow Chief worked three times at Santa Anita between his win in the Santa Anita Derby and his departure for Kentucky.

Stute and Snow Chief’s owners, former trainer Carl Grinstead of Chula Vista and Ben Rochelle of Beverly Hills, must still believe that 1 miles are within the colt’s capabilities, because they are holding open the option of running in the $1-million Jersey Derby at Garden State Park. The Jersey Derby, only nine days after the Preakness, is 1 miles.

“In the Kentucky Derby he stopped after only a mile,” Stute said. “We know from his other races that he’s capable of running farther than that.”

A dislike for the track, the pre-Derby training schedule and the ride by Solis are the reasons that Stute keeps returning to in his Derby retrospective.

“The pace was a little fast,” Stute said. “All four horses that were up there early finished way back at the end.”

Besides Snow Chief, they were Groovy, who was last in the 16-horse field after setting some of the fastest early fractions in Derby history; Zabaleta, who ran 12th, and Bachelor Beau, who wound up 14th.

Solis, who will ride Snow Chief again in the Preakness, indicated that the start had something to do with being so close to Groovy and the others.

“My horse was moving his head when the door (of the starting gate) opened,” Solis said. “He stumbled coming out and then tried to take off running as he recovered.”

Stute remembered that Snow Chief had run close behind a fast pace on Feb. 2 in the El Camino Real Derby at Bay Meadows. He won that race, but it was at a distance of only 1 1/16 miles, and even though the field included Badger Land, it wasn’t against a group of seasoned horses such as Snow Chief raced in the Kentucky Derby.

Two things that didn’t contribute to Snow Chief’s bomb in Louisville were his behavior before the race and his physical condition during it.

The noisy, crowded paddock at Churchill Downs usually spooks at least a few Derby horses. Bachelor Beau, in the stall next to Snow Chief as they were being saddled, acted up and started kicking, but the California horse just stood there until it was time to leave for the track.

Because of Snow Chief’s poor showing, Stute had the colt examined after the Derby. The examination included a scoping of the horse’s lungs to see if he had bled during the race. Everything was negative.

Groovy, a colt who knows how to run only one way, with an open throttle, figures to be in his customary front-running position in the Preakness.

“I imagine we’ll be close to the lead again,” Stute said. But at least the Preakness is a sixteenth of a mile shorter than the Derby. And Snow Chief can’t run any worse than he did two weeks ago.