Santa Anita Handicap : Should the Derby Duo Falter, Look Out for the Judge

Tom Gentry and his son, Olin, were in the walking ring before a race at Santa Anita a week ago, watching one of their horses about to leave for the track.

Olin was getting eyeballed by his father.

“Don’t you have a suit or a sport coat?” Tom Gentry said. He was thinking about a possible trip to the winner’s circle, and Olin was wearing a sport shirt, with no coat.

“I’ll be all right,” Olin Gentry said.

“Well, it’d be better if at least you’d be wearing a coat,” Tom Gentry said.

Olin might have suggested to his father that he was properly dressed, because if Judge Angelucci, the horse he’s running in the $1-million Santa Anita Handicap today, should happen to upset Alysheba and Ferdinand, the subhead to the story might read: “The Owner Is a Groom.”

For a couple of weeks this season, 21-year-old Olin Gentry was filling in for a vacationing groom in the barn of Charlie Whittingham, who trains Judge Angelucci and two more of the five Big ‘Cap starters, Ferdinand and Temperate Sil.

“The first horse he brought over to the track to run for Charlie was Lively One, and he won,” Tom Gentry said of his son. “I bet that if he won with the next one he brought over, Charlie would have given him the job for life. But Rivlia didn’t run as well.”

Olin Gentry will leave soon for the next stage of his horse education, breaking yearlings and working with mares and stallions during the breeding season at the family farm near Lexington, Ky. A formal education at the University of Kentucky has gone by the wayside.

Tom Gentry also learned the game the rudimentary way, from his father Olin, who managed Darby Dan Farm in Kentucky when it was one of the most powerful breeding and racing combines in the sport.

Although young Olin Gentry is the owner of record, it is his father who calls the shots for Judge Angelucci. He is one of the few horses Tom Gentry still has in training after a federal bankruptcy court reduced his stock and jeopardized his farm a year ago.

But Judge Angelucci has kept the Gentrys smiling, and there is even the feeling in more objective circles that the 5-year-old chestnut is capable of stealing the spotlight from Alysheba and Ferdinand today.

“The first important thing is that we get a fast track,” Olin Gentry said. “Then it’ll be interesting to see where he lays in the first part of the race.”

There has been a subtle change in Judge Angelucci’s running style. Last year, he needed to lead to be effective, and all seven of his wins were virtually wire to wire. In his last two starts, however, Eddie Delahoussaye positioned him just off the pace, the result being a second-place finish to Super Diamond--by a neck--in the San Pasqual Handicap and a 3 1/2-length win over Ferdinand in the San Antonio Handicap.

Whittingham could have the option of sending Temperate Sil instead of Judge Angelucci to the lead today, with the three other starters--Super Diamond, Alysheba and Ferdinand--expected to make their runs from off the pace.

“The Judge is one tough son of a gun, and he’s a better horse than he was last year,” Whittingham said. “Hell, Ferdinand only beat him by about a length in the Breeders’ Cup (Classic). But Ferdinand will run better than he did last time. He’s been training sharper for this race than he did for that one.”

Whittingham, looking for his eighth Big ‘Cap win, won’t tip his hand about strategy.

“We can put Ferdinand just about anyplace we want to,” Whittingham said. “He could be up close or a little farther back. The pace will probably determine where he is.”

The field may be small, but it’s rich.

“It’s the greatest handicap field I’ve seen in one race,” said Tom Gentry, 50.

All of the starters are millionaires. Led by Ferdinand with $3.3 million and Alysheba with $3.1 million, the five horses have earned $10 million and won 30 stakes, 11 of them major races.

One of them will be considerably richer later today. By $550,000, in fact.

THE FIELD

PP Horse Jockey Wgt Odds 1 Super Diamond Laffit Pincay 124 7-2 2 Alysheba Chris McCarron 126 7-5 3 Judge Angelucci Eddie Delahoussaye 123 9-2 4 Ferdinand Bill Shoemaker 127 8-5 5 Temperate Sil Jorge Velasquez 117 15-1