Wood Memorial : McGaughey Seeks Roses With Seeking the Gold

Down-home Shug McGaughey, the squat, moon-faced trainer who is running Seeking the Gold in today’s $500,000 Wood Memorial at Aqueduct, has had one taste of the Kentucky Derby.

In 1984, McGaughey saddled an entry for John Ed Anthony at Churchill Downs, and the two colts went off at 6-1. Pine Circle, considered the lesser half of the pair, finished 6th, and Vanlandingham struggled home 16th, injuring himself in the race and not running again for a year.

The 37-year-old McGaughey concedes now that he didn’t have any business even running Vanlandingham in the Derby.

“He got sick before the Arkansas Derby, and we missed that race,” McGaughey said. “Then I had to press to get him ready for the Kentucky Derby.”

Stories about trainers running in the Derby when they shouldn’t have would fill a volume the size of “War and Peace.” But once burned, McGaughey now seems to have America’s most renowned race in better perspective.

He’s saying that Seeking the Gold won’t be Louisville-bound unless he beats nine other 3-year-olds in the 1 1/8-mile Wood, which is New York’s final prep for the Derby two weeks from today.

McGaughey was born in Lexington, Ky., 70 miles east of Louisville, and was smitten by racing when his parents took him to Keeneland at an early age. He took out his first head trainer’s license in 1979 and was considered a Kentucky conditioner until he signed on to handle the Ogden Phipps stable in New York more than two years ago.

“Nobody wants to win the Derby more than I do,” McGaughey said at his barn at nearby Belmont Park earlier this week. “But when you go to Louisville with the wrong horse, you can really be wrong. I think Seeking the Gold has a legitimate chance to run in the Derby, but he’s going to have to win the Wood in order for me to take him there.

“Either way, he’s going to be a good horse, and I don’t have 8 or 10 other 3-year-olds in my barn to take his place if I handle him the wrong way.”

Until the one-mile Gotham here two weeks ago, Seeking the Gold was perceived as one of the country’s best 3-year-olds. He had won all four of his races, all of them quite easily. In two of them, jockey Randy Romero didn’t even use his whip.

But in the Gotham, as the 3-5 public choice, Seeking the Gold had the kind of trip that gives trainers ulcers. Romero placed the colt farther back than usual, Seeking the Gold objected to sand hitting him in his face, and then Romero, trapped on the rail at the quarter pole, had to swing out to try to catch the winner, Private Terms.

Confidence in Seeking the Gold has waned so much that he will likely go off as the third or fourth choice in today’s betting, with Brian’s Time, Cherokee Colony and possibly Private Terms receiving more play.

Although Private Terms is 6 for 6, New York horseplayers may still not be convinced, because before the Gotham he had done his winning against soft opposition at Maryland tracks.

The other runners in the Wood are Tejano and Dynaformer, a Wayne Lukas-trained entry, plus Perfect Spy, Ballindaggin, Pleasant Evening and Sewickley.

Besides rebounding from the mistakes that hurt him in the Gotham, Seeking the Gold has other obstacles today. He is:

--Carrying 126 pounds, the same as the other Wood starters, for the first time in his life. That is 12 pounds more than he toted in the Gotham. Private Terms has already carried 126 pounds, in the Gotham.

--Running his first race around two turns.

--Trying to dash the reputation that his sire, Mr. Prospector, has of turning out milers who are seldom stretched out successfully.

One thing Seeking the Gold has going for him in the Wood is that Aqueduct has been a speed-favoring track and McGaughey and Romero figure to be sitting just off the lead, or setting the pace, rather than the mid-pack position the colt had in the Gotham. The Wood field doesn’t have a lot of speed and McGaughey figures that it will be either his horse or Tejano, the Hollywood Futurity winner who is winless this year, going to the front.

A win in the Wood would be a welcome morale booster for McGaughey’s barn. After the Gotham, the trainer sent out another 3-5 shot, Cadillacing, and she was beaten in the Bed o’ Roses Handicap. Then on Wednesday here, In Vain, a well bred 3-year-old filly making her first start, appeared to be making a decisive move at the quarter-mile pole when she snapped a leg and catapulted Romero to the track.

The jockey was not seriously injured, but the filly had to be destroyed with a lethal injection. Like Seeking the Gold, she had been sired by Mr. Prospector.

Horse Racing Notes

King’s Swan, the 8-year-old gelding who carried 130 and 133 pounds in recent handicaps, dropped into allowance company at Aqueduct Friday and with only a 123-pound impost won the $150,000 Bold Ruler by 2 lengths over Seattle Knight, with Faster Than Sound a neck back in third place. King’s Swan won his 26th race in 77 starts, earned $103,680 and increased his career total to $1.5 million.

Private Terms, who is stabled at Pimlico in Baltimore, about 200 miles from Aqueduct, worked three furlongs in :37 3/5 and then was vanned to New York late Friday afternoon. . . . Brian’s Time worked three furlongs Friday in :35 3/5. . . . There is certain equipment that makes horses suspect. Private Terms wears front leg wraps and Perfect Spy runs with a bar shoe. Charlie Hadry, Private Terms’ trainer, said that he frequently runs horses with front wraps.

Din’s Dancer has been scratched from today’s Arkansas Derby because of a fever. . . . Talinum, one of last year’s top 3-year-olds before he was injured shortly before the Kentucky Derby, continues on the comeback trail at Aqueduct Sunday, running in the $200,000 Excelsior Handicap.