Derby Odds Balloon: : Jolley’s 2 Chances Are Not Slim and None

Trainer LeRoy Jolley, dressed in a light jacket and wearing a checked touring cap that is his trademark on the backstretch, stood outside Barn 42 at Churchill Downs the other morning, gazing at the start of the Kentucky Derby Festival’s Great Balloon Race overhead.

“I wonder if any of them (the balloonists) know where the finish line is?” Jolley said.

LeRoy Stanton Jolley, the son of a Tennessee horseman, worked around the barn in Arkansas for his father when he was 7 and knows where the finish line of the Kentucky Derby is. Jolley started his first Derby horse at 24, finishing third with the favored Ridan when Decidedly won in 1962. But he won on his next visit to Churchill Downs with Foolish Pleasure in 1975 and, in 1980, he saddled Genuine Risk when she became only the second filly to win the Derby.

On Saturday, in the 113th Derby, Jolley will start Wood Memorial winner Gulch, and Leo Castelli, who has never won a stake but by most accounts was the best horse in the Blue Grass at Keeneland last Thursday. Alysheba interfered with the rallying Leo Castelli near the sixteenth pole, almost knocking Jolley’s colt down. Alysheba finished first but was disqualified and the win went to War, who ran second. Leo Castelli wound up third, beaten by only a couple of heads.

After watching videotaped reruns of the Blue Grass, Jolley is amazed that neither Alysheba nor Leo Castelli went down.

“Alysheba’s right hind leg hooked my horse’s left front leg twice,” Jolley said. “Horses at that point in a race are bound to be tired. It was a big effort for both of them to recover.”

Because Leo Castelli and Gulch will run as an entry, they will be one of the favorites--perhaps the third choice behind Arkansas Derby winner Demons Begone and Florida Derby winner Cryptoclearance--in the betting. Gulch alone would command support at the windows Saturday. His Wood victory reaffirmed his form as a young 2-year-old, when he won his first five starts and two major stakes, all in New York.

Like the fans, the trainers of the 14-16 Derby starters are having difficulty assessing the race.

“Here we’ve lost the Santa Anita Derby winner (Temperate Sil) and the Flamingo winner (Talinum) because of sickness and injury, and everybody still can’t pick the favorite,” Jolley said. “That shows you how evenly matched this field is.”

Jolley, who has started nine horses in the Derby, has known the best and worst of times. In 1976, the year after Foolish Pleasure took the roses, Jolley sent Honest Pleasure to Louisville.

Honest Pleasure went into the Derby with a nine-race winning streak and he went off at 2-5, the biggest favorite in 28 years.

Foolish Pleasure had been no fool for Jolley, but Honest Pleasure wasn’t honest. Angel Cordero sent Bold Forbes off to an easy early lead, and although Honest Pleasure was within striking distance going into the stretch, he finished a length short.

In a wide-open year not unlike this one, Genuine Risk was a 13-1 shot in 1980. Running only against other females, she hadn’t lost in six tries. But against colts in the Wood, two weeks before the Derby, she finished third.

Regret, in 1915, had been the only filly to win the Derby and Plugged Nickle, winner of the Wood, and Rockhill Native, an impressive winner of the Blue Grass, were in the 1980 field. Had it not been for many in the crowd of 131,000 betting with their hearts rather than their heads, Genuine Risk’s price would have been even longer. Genuine Risk circled the field on the far turn and won by a length over Rumbo.

The next year, Jolley was back at the Derby with a colt, Cure the Blues, though it is said that the horse’s owner, Bert Firestone, put a gun to the trainer’s head to get him to go. Cure the Blues was an undefeated 2-year-old, but in 1981 he couldn’t beat the Aqueduct horses in either the Gotham Stakes or the Wood.

There was a jockey change for the Derby, Bill Shoemaker replacing Jacinto Vasquez, who had given Jolley his Derby wins on Foolish Pleasure and Genuine Risk.

Cure the Blues ran 15th in a 21-horse field. Shortly after the Derby, Jolley stopped training Firestone’s horses.

Shoemaker, who hasn’t ridden many horses through the years for Jolley, will ride one of his starters in the Derby, the speculation being that it will be Gulch. The last time they were together, Shoemaker and Jolley’s Scoot finished in a dead heat for first in the Flower Bowl Handicap last fall at Belmont Park. Shoemaker worked Manila three times for Jolley at Santa Anita before Jose Santos rode the horse to victory last November in the $2-million Breeders’ Cup Turf Stakes.

“A rider of Shoemaker’s caliber deserves to have a mount in the Derby,” Jolley said.

Santos rode Gulch in the Wood and Leo Castelli in the Blue Grass, but he’s committed to ride Cryptoclearance in the Derby.

Shoemaker, winner of last year’s Derby with Ferdinand and winner of three Derbies before that, became available when Temperate Sil was declared out of Saturday’s race with a virus.

Jolley hasn’t announced his second Derby jockey, saying that decision won’t be made until today, when Peter Brant, who owns both Gulch and Leo Castelli, arrives here from a polo holiday in Argentina.

Conjecture is running strong for two-time Derby winner Vasquez, who rode Gulch when he was a distant third in the Gotham April 4.

“He didn’t give him a bad ride that day,” Jolley said. “I gave him a horrible set of instructions.

“The horse was five lengths back leaving the chute, and then he hit a bad spot (on a sloppy track) and got bogged down. That put us 15 to 18 lengths back.”

Angel Cordero, who’ll ride Capote in the Derby, was taken off Gulch the race before the Gotham.

“The horse and the jockey didn’t get along,” Jolley said. “Cordero’s aggressive style wasn’t what Gulch wanted. Besides, we were getting the horse to run while coming from behind.”

Jolley’s nine Derby starters--he’s had two seconds and a third besides the two wins--have been ridden by seven jockeys. All he wants is a rider who knows how to find the finish line. It’s the same principle that applies to a balloon race.

Horse Racing Notes Gary Stevens, who rode On the Line in the first race of the horse’s career last October at Santa Anita, will be back on the Wayne Lukas-trained colt in the Kentucky Derby. . . . Trainer Jeff Lukas said that a second set of X-rays of Talinum showed no breaks. The colt will be sent to a Lexington, Ky., farm for a few days and it hasn’t been determined whether he will run in the Preakness and the Belmont, the other Triple Crown races. . . . Although Temperate Sil’s fever is gone, he will probably be out of training for a month, which eliminates him from the Triple Crown. . . . Demons Begone breezed a half-mile in :48 Sunday, another of several slow workouts by Derby horses. On Monday, Gulch worked three-quarters of a mile in 1:16 4/5, just before Churchill Downs was hit by rain. The track was still fast for Monday’s program. . . . Conquistarose, working five furlongs in 1:00 3/5 Sunday, will be entered in the Derby and will run even if it doesn’t rain. That puts the field back up to 16. . . . Shawklit Won, who arrived at Churchill Downs Monday, and Capote, scheduled to arrive Wednesday, are the last of the 16 to reach Louisville. . . . Capote worked three quarters in 1:14 4/5 Monday at Belmont Park, and Shawklit Won was timed in 1:27 for seven eighths at Aqueduct.