Ferdinand’s Reign Is Turned to Snow : In Redemptive Preakness Run, Snow Chief Beats Derby Winner

Get Ripley and the editors of the Guinness record book. It was 87 degrees at Pimlico Race Course Saturday, but there was snow.

It wasn’t really the white stuff. It was snow as in Snow Chief, the bust of the Kentucky Derby two weeks ago but the star of the Preakness Stakes. Call it revenge, as trainer Mel Stute said it would be, or call it redemption, as co-owner Carl Grinstead had characterized it, but by any name it was a four-length victory for Snow Chief over Derby winner Ferdinand before 87,652 fans, a record crowd at Pimlico.

Ferdinand, who had won the Derby while the favored Snow Chief struggled home 11th, 19 1/2 lengths behind, saw his Triple Crown aspirations melt away Saturday. Jockey Bill Shoemaker, at 54 trying for his third Preakness win, couldn’t get a climbing Ferdinand within reasonable striking distance early. And even though they cut the corner and saved ground turning for home, there was no catching Snow Chief, who became the fourth California-bred to win the race and the first to do it since Candy Spots, with Shoemaker on his back, in 1963.

Just as disappointing as Ferdinand Saturday was Badger Land, who with entrymate Clear Choice had gone off the 9-5 favorite. Badger Land was in nearly the same spot that Ferdinand was in for most of the race--near the back of the seven-horse field--and he lost a photo with Broad Brush for third place, finishing 10 1/2 lengths and a nose behind Snow Chief.

Snow Chief, the second choice in the betting, paid $7.20, $4.80 and $3.60. Ferdinand, finishing 6 1/2 lengths ahead of Broad Brush, was a 3-1 third choice despite his Derby win and paid $4.80 and $3.20. Broad Brush, who had run third in the Derby, paid $3. A $2 exacta on Snow Chief and Ferdinand was worth $35.

After the first four finishers, the trailers in the $534,400 race were Miracle Wood, Groovy and Clear Choice.

The win, Snow Chief’s sixth in his last seven starts and 10th in 15 races, was worth $411,400 to Grinstead, the retired electrical engineer from Chula Vista who bred the blackish colt, and to Ben Rochelle, the former vaudeville dancer from Beverly Hills. Snow Chief’s career earnings are now over the $2.1-million mark.

And now that Snow Chief is back on the winning track, the sky must be the limit. After the Preakness, Stute indicated that he’d like to run the son of $2,000 stallion Reflected Glory and Miss Snowflake in the $1-million Jersey Derby at Garden State Park a week from Monday. The Belmont Stakes, the third leg of the Triple Crown and the longest of the three races, apparently is out of the question because of its 1 1/2-mile distance, but Grinstead, who calls all the shots in the Rochelle partnership, will make the decision later this week.

Jockey Alex Solis, who had positioned Snow Chief a tad too close to a homicidal early pace in the Derby, had the colt exactly where he needed to be Saturday, just behind the speedball Groovy. Unlike the Derby, however, Groovy’s early speed Saturday was deceptive. It was really a dawdle, fractions of :47 2/5 and 1:11. The winning time for the 1 3/16 miles was 1:54 4/5, more than a second slower than the track record set by Preakness winner Tank’s Prospect last year.

Solis, following Stute’s instructions, kept Snow Chief on the rail going down the backstretch, moved past Groovy entering the stretch and had no trouble holding off Ferdinand to the wire. The winning margin was the biggest in the Preakness since Codex, Badger Land’s sire, won by 4 3/4 lengths in 1980.

At the head of the stretch, Craig Perret, riding the tiring Groovy, knew the race was over for his colt. “OK,” he yelled to Solis, “you’ve got it, Alex--go ahead.”

Solis didn’t need an invitation. “At the half-mile pole, he was strong and he was running very easy,” the jockey said. “At the quarter pole, he was asking me to let him run. At the three-sixteenths pole, I asked him to run, and he took off.”

Stute felt that this was vintage Snow Chief, the kind of colt who won the Florida and Santa Anita derbies rather than the one who finished ahead of only five horses in the 16-horse Kentucky Derby.

“He’s a perfect athlete,” Stute said. “That’s why I wouldn’t have any problem running him right back in the Jersey Derby. Today, just like in those other races, he got the lead at the quarter pole and drew away. Alex gave him an almost-perfect ride. I told him to stay close to the pace.”

Shoemaker and Ferdinand weren’t close early but not by choice. “My horse wasn’t grabbing ahold of the track the way he did in Kentucky,” Shoemaker said. “The second quarter (of a mile), I asked him to speed it up a bit, but he just wasn’t getting ahold of the track.”

After the Derby, it had been a long walk for Stute back to the barn at Churchill Downs. As the trainer walked around the outer edge of the race track to get there, he had second-guessed himself about how he had prepared Snow Chief for the Derby: no starts a month before the race, perhaps not enough workouts at Churchill Downs.

Saturday, Stute’s stride was considerably longer as he reached the barn where his son and assistant trainer, Gary, and another aide, Gary Gregory, were popping champagne corks.

Had Stute not second-guessed himself following the Derby, the media were there with fangs out, filling the breach.

“It (criticism) doesn’t bother me,” Stute said. “I get mad at Kareem (Abdul-Jabbar) when he plays a bad game for the Lakers, so I can understand.”

As the sun set on this matriarch of a city by the Chesapeake Bay, the oppressively hot early temperatures were finally going down. Still, it was too warm for any snow in Baltimore, except for the kind that Snow Chief provided, running pell-mell through Pimlico’s stretch.