Ferdinand’s Win Saves Day for Whittingham

Early in the week, the pattern began to form for trainer Charlie Whittingham, and it was taking on the image of a skull and crossbones.

Bold Second, the 2-year-old colt who had been supplemented into the Breeders’ Cup, broke an ankle in a workout, costing Whittingham and his co-owner $40,000.

Then the other shoe dropped. At the post-position draw last Wednesday, Temperate Sil, another of Whittingham’s remaining nine Breeders’ Cup starters, got the next-to-the-outside spot and was virtually eliminated from contention.

On Saturday at Hollywood Park, the snake that bit Whittingham twice was still wriggling. One by one, his Breeders’ Cup hopefuls stumbled, and particularly painful were the defeats of Jeanne Jones in the Juvenile Fillies and Infinidad in the Distaff.

Jeanne Jones, the six-length leader at the top of the stretch, did a stutter step near the wire and was nosed out by Epitome, a 30-1 longshot. Infinidad, the shortest price on the seven-race Breeders’ Cup card, was never in contention and finished fourth, more than six lengths behind Sacahuista.

“It had been a day of heartbreaks until now,” said Peggy Whittingham, the wife of the 74-year-old trainer. She was standing at the back of an interview area in the catacombs of Hollywood Park, minutes after Whittingham’s Ferdinand, winning a race that was as dramatic as his Kentucky Derby victory the year before, held off 1987 Derby winner Alysheba by the slimmest of noses at the wire of the $3-million Breeders’ Cup Classic.

These two colts were so close together that they fooled Chris McCarron, Alysheba’s jockey, and kept the crowd of 57,734 in suspense until the photo-finish picture could be developed.

But Bill Shoemaker may have known the outcome. The graying 56-year-old jockey, who won thoroughbred racing’s first million-dollar race by just as thin a margin with John Henry at Arlington Park six years ago, was pulling up Ferdinand just past the finish line Saturday when McCarron said:

“Want to save?”

Saving is a hoary jockeys’ practice, now outlawed, of splitting shares of the purse when they ride horses with the same ownership in a race.

“OK,” Shoemaker said to McCarron.

“$5,000?” McCarron said.

“Make it $10,000,” Shoemaker said.

The only money that will change hands on the Classic will be coming from Hollywood Park’s paymaster’s office, with owner Elizabeth Keck receiving $1.35 million for Ferdinand’s victory, less 10% cuts for both Whittingham and Shoemaker.

Neither the trainer nor the jockey had ever won a Breeders’ Cup race, Whittingham being 0 for 14 going into the Classic and Shoemaker being 0 for 13.

Ferdinand didn’t give Whittingham his first Kentucky Derby win until the skin-headed trainer was 73.

“This (Breeders’ Cup) has only been going for four years,” Whittingham said. “All you got to do is live a long time to win some of these races.”

Although the fields for this year’s Breeders’ Cup were diluted by injuries to several prominent horses, the reluctance of Eastern trainers to ship to California for the third time in the last four years and a few owners being unwilling to pay expensive supplementary fees because their horses weren’t nominated, Saturday’s racing was an aesthetic success even before the Ferdinand-Alysheba heart-pumper.

There was the monotony of horses being unable to run down the leaders on the speed-favoring track in four of the first five dirt races.

In the first race, the Sprint, Very Subtle’s upset of Groovy, at 16-1, removed the New York speedster from the title picture and left him an unlikely loser in the Breeders’ Cup for the second straight year.

In the $2 million Turf Stakes, Theatrical had a resilient stretch run to beat Trempolino.

For something old, it was Wayne Lukas saddling more Breeders’ Cup winners, increasing his total to 6 out of 36 starters when Sacahuista won the Distaff and Success Express won the Juvenile.

The other winners were Epitome, who provided a $62.80 shocker in the Juvenile Fillies, and Miesque, the French filly who outran 13 others in the Mile.

Something else old was trainer Jack Van Berg being unable to win the Classic. Van Berg, who trains Alysheba, twice missed with Gate Dancer, who was a careening second at Hollywood Park in 1984 and let Proud Truth run him down in the last couple of jumps at Aqueduct in 1985.

“I thought we got beat before they put the numbers up,” Van Berg said Saturday. “Then the next jump (after the wire), we had it.”

Van Berg didn’t think Whittingham had an unfair advantage by being able to run Judge Angelucci, a speed horse, in the Classic along with Ferdinand. The pace that Judge Angelucci and Candi’s Gold set--:46 2/5 for a half-mile and 1:10 1/5--was slower than what Van Berg anticipated.

At the eighth pole, Alysheba had circled the field, in fourth place just behind Ferdinand, with Judge Angelluci and Candi’s Gold, on the rail, trying to hang on.

“I got to Shoemaker’s saddle towel with my horse,” McCarron said. “But then Shoe shook his stick at Ferdinand, and man did he take off. He shot about a length, or a length and a half, in front of me.

“Ferdinand has such quick acceleration. But the difference, when you only get beat by that much, might have been at the three-eighths pole. Ferdinand was only three wide and I was five deep. But I didn’t want to try to go through and get stopped.”

Shoemaker rode Ferdinand when the colt had trouble overtaking his stablemate in the Hollywood Gold Cup last June, and Saturday the jockey thought Judge Angelucci wasn’t going to quit.

“I didn’t hit my horse, I just shook the stick at him,” Shoemaker said. “This horse has a tendency to ease himself up, but today he just saw enough of Alyseba coming to get the job done.”

The Classic was Shoemaker’s 8,706th career win, his 983rd in a stake and No. 245 in a race worth $100,000 or more. Less than an hour later, Shoemaker improved on all those totals when he rode Fairly Old to victory in the $100,000 Somethingroyal Handicap.

Ferdinand, timed in 2:01 2/5 for the 1 miles, paid $4, $3 and $2.60. Alysheba, finishing 1 lengths ahead of Judge Angelucci, paid $3.60 and $3.60. Judge Angelucci, who had 1 1/2 lengths on Candi’s Gold, paid $5.80.

Skywalker, who won the Classic last year and was trying to repeat after a light campaign following a spring at stud, was in the middle of the 12-horse field most of the way Saturday before fading to last.

Skywalker is trained by Michael Whittingham, who beat his father to the Breeders’ Cup winner’s circle. For a long time Saturday, it looked like Charlie Whittingham was going to have to wait another year to catch up. But then along came Ferdinand and Shoemaker, changing that skull and crossbones to a rainbow with a pot at the end.

BREEDERS’ CUP THE WINNING HORSES, THEIR JOCKEYS AND $2 MUTUEL PAYOFFS FOR RACES AT HOLLYWOOD PARK SATURDAY.

SPRINT (6 FURLONGS) Very Subtle Pat Valenzuela $34.80 JUVENILE FILLIES (MILE) Epitome Pat Day $62.80 DISTAFF (1 MILES) Sacahuista Randy Romero $7.80 MILE (ON TURF) Miesque Freddy Head $9.20 JUVENILE (MILE) Success Express Jose Santos $10.20 TURF (1 1/2 MILES) Theatrical Pat Day $5.60 CLASSIC (1 MILES) Ferdinand Bill Shoemaker $4.00