Horse Racing / Bill Christine : Romero Brings Winning Ways West

It has been more than a year since Randy Romero has ridden Taylor’s Special, one of six mounts that the 28-year-old jockey will have in the Breeders’ Cup a week from Saturday at Santa Anita.

But Romero will remember the 5-year-old sprinter. Probably for the wrong reason.

It was Taylor’s Special that Romero had been planning to ride in the Kentucky Derby in 1984. But in mid-March, two days before Taylor’s Special won the Louisiana Derby, a green 2-year-old filly bolted toward the outside fence at Delta Downs in Vinton, La. Romero jumped off--only the second time in his career that he had to bail out--and broke his thigh bone, the same bone Chris McCarron broke at Santa Anita last week.

Romero needed three operations, one in which a stainless steel rod was inserted in his thigh. Under other jockeys, Taylor’s Special won the Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland and finished 13th in the Kentucky Derby.

Romero’s accident at Delta Downs occurred only three weeks before the first anniversary of a horrible sweat-box explosion at Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs, Ark., that left Romero with burns over 65% of his body. It was a tragedy that turned even the doctors into handicappers. Romero was a 4-1 shot to live.

Romero returned to action three months later, though, winning with the first horse he rode. Now, with a body that has undergone 17 riding-related operations, Romero has become the hottest rider in New York, where he is competing for the first time. He will also be one of the busiest jockeys in the Breeders’ Cup.

In addition to Taylor’s Special in the Sprint, Romero will ride Polish Navy in the Juvenile, Personal Ensign in the Juvenile Fillies, Fred Astaire in the Mile, Twilight Ridge in the Distaff and Roo Art in the Classic. Polish Navy and Personal Ensign are both undefeated 2-year-olds.

Only the Breeders’ Cup Turf will be run without Romero. “Know anybody with a fast horse that needs a rider in that one?” asked Lenny Goodman, Romero’s cigar-chewing agent, after rattling off his jockey’s six assignments.

Goodman, whose previous riders have included Braulio Baeza and Steve Cauthen, is given some of the credit for Romero’s success in New York. Romero rode 54 winners in leading the recently completed Belmont Park season, and the Daily Racing Form had him in sixth place, with $6.1 million in purses, in the national standings through Oct. 12.

Romero’s matchless resolve, of course, is the real reason he is back on top. Last year, Romero won 416 races, about 100 more than anybody else in the country except Chris Antley, who totaled 469 winners while riding mostly in New Jersey. This fall’s Belmont title marked the 17th time Romero had won a track championship.

“Romero’s a strong rider and he’s hot,” said trainer Wayne Lukas, explaining why he has hired the indefatigable jockey to ride Twilight Ridge and Roo Art. Romero is 2 for 2 on Pine Tree Lane, Lukas’ entry in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint, but because of Romero’s commitment to Taylor’s Special, Angel Cordero has Pine Tree Lane.

In putting Romero on Roo Art, Lukas is replacing Bill Shoemaker, who won two stakes with the colt earlier in the year but finished fifth with him last Saturday night in the Meadowlands Cup.

“Shoe gave him a tentative ride,” Lukas said. “He had him up there in third early, then he dropped him back, and then he tried to come on with him again.”

Lukas has dropped icons before. This summer at Hollywood Park, before Laffit Pincay emerged from a brief slump, the trainer was using other jockeys. Pincay is riding two of Lukas’ 2-year-olds in the Breeders’ Cup--Capote and Sacahuista--and Shoemaker has the call on another one, Anything for Love.

“I like to use hot jockeys, and Romero has been winning a lot of races, both at Belmont and the Meadowlands,” Lukas said.

What Lukas didn’t mention is that Romero also knows Santa Anita. In a move that might have cost him the national races-won title in 1982, Romero left the Midwest and came to California that fall. A close battle for the championship turned into a runaway, with Pat Day beating Romero by about 100 wins.

Once Romero got rolling at Santa Anita early in 1983, however, he finished tied for eighth in the season standings. But stakes mounts were hard to find, and a frustrated Romero returned to the Midwest, only to be turned into a human torch at Oaklawn Park, and then beat the odds that the medics laid against him.

Horse Racing Notes Pat Rogerson, who makes a betting line on the Breeders’ Cup for the Las Vegas Sun and the Frontier Hotel, made these horses the favorites after Tuesday’s pre-entry: Juvenile--Gulch, 2-1; Juvenile Fillies--Personal Ensign, 5-2; Sprint--Groovy, 3-5; Mile--Al Mamoon, 5-2; Distaff--Lady’s Secret, 3-5; Turf--Dancing Brave, 9-5; Classic--Precisionist, even money. . . . Groovy, who runs faster in the mornings than he does in his races, blazed three furlongs Wednesday in :33 4/5. Trainer Ross Fenstermaker thought that Precisionist gave him a creditable mile workout of 1:39 1/5. . . . The Breeders’ Cup Juvenile will bring together the first three finishers in Belmont Park’s Champagne--Polish Navy, Demon’s Begone and Bet Twice--as well as the first four finishers in Santa Anita’s Norfolk--Capote, Gulch, Gold on Green and Qualify. Some horsemen believe that Demon’s Begone might have won the Champagne if he hadn’t switched lead feet just a few strides before the finish line. Polish Navy won the race by a nose.

The California Thoroughbred Breeders Assn. and the Oak Tree Racing Assn. are sponsoring a three-day symposium, starting Monday, at the Pasadena Hilton Hotel. . . . Dancing Brave reportedly has been syndicated for breeding, with 36 shareholders paying $600,000 apiece. . . . For the second straight year, the NBC outlet in Columbus, Ohio, will not carry the Breeders’ Cup telecast. Columbus is the home of John Galbreath, who won the Breeders’ Cup Classic last year with Proud Truth and who owns a substantial interest in Turkoman, one of the favorites in this year’s race. . . . On Breeders’ Cup day, there will be a one-day change in the bets offered. There will be six $5 exactas, a daily double, the Pick Six and the Pick Nine, but no daily triple. . . . Two $100,000 handicaps, the Midwick and the Morvich, will complete the Breeders’ Cup Day program.