Maryland Colt Scores Wood Win : Private Terms Defeats Seeking the Gold to Remain Unbeaten

All Private Terms did before winning Saturday’s Wood Memorial was finish first every time he was sent to the track. The 3-year-old colt won five straight in Maryland and then came to New York for the Gotham Stakes, a race he won while carrying 126 pounds and spotting the opposition from 3 to 12 pounds.

In the Gotham, New Yorkers had seen Private Terms beat Seeking the Gold, another undefeated colt, two weeks ago on the same Aqueduct track where they ran the Wood.

Supposedly street-smart and horse-wise, local horseplayers still wouldn’t give Private Terms much of a chance in the $599,000 Wood, the 1 1/8-mile race that is New York’s final test for Kentucky Derby hopefuls. When the 10-horse field was loaded into the gate, the tote board showed that Seeking the Gold, despite having added 12 pounds to his back, was the 2-1 favorite, Brian’s Time was the 3-1 second choice and Private Terms was next at 7-2.

All Private Terms did in the next two minutes was win the Wood by 1 1/2 lengths, cover the distance in a stakes record 1:47 1/5, missing the track record by a fifth of a second. The horses his time can be compared to were no one-race wonders--Bold Forbes set the Wood record of 1:47 2/5 before winning the Kentucky Derby and the Belmont Stakes in 1976, and Riva Ridge, who set the track record of 1:47 under 130 pounds in 1973, was the champion handicap horse that year and had won the Derby in 1972.

Charlie Hadry, the 57-year-old trainer of Private Terms, who dropped out of school in the ninth grade to become a stablehand at a Maryland track that’s now a parking lot for the National Guard, could have been in a boastful mood as he walked through the mud from the Aqueduct winner’s circle back to the barn. But Charlie Hadry acts like a man who’s never chortled.

“They pay no attention to you until you come up here and prove yourself,” he said softly. “Then they pick it up from there.”

New Yorkers who have seen and believed may finally be on Private Terms’ bandwagon, but the Maryland-owned, Kentucky-bred son of Private Account and the Bold Ruler mare, Laughter, could still lack for respect in the Kentucky Derby May 7.

The Wayne Lukas-trained entry of three or four horses is still likely to go off the favorite, because one of his band is Winning Colors, the filly who won the Santa Anita Derby. And Woody Stephens, who will have a multiple Derby entry that includes Forty Niner, could even wind up second choice.

Private Terms, 7 for 7, has a chance to become the fifth horse to win the Derby with an unbeaten record. The others were Regret in 1915, Morvich in 1922, Majestic Prince in 1969 and Seattle Slew in 1977.

Owner-breeder Stuart Janney Jr.’s horse will probably have to beat a few of the same horses he ran against Saturday on a track made faster by a light rain. Seeking the Gold was second to Private Terms again, a nose better than Cherokee Colony, who had a nightmarish trip. It was another half-length back to Tejano, who had 3 lengths on Brian’s Time. The rest of the order across the wire was Ballindaggin, Dynaformer, Sewickley, Perfect Spy and Pleasant Evening.

Earning $359,400 and upping his career total to $742,328, Private Terms paid $9.20, $4.20 and $3.20. Seeking the Gold paid $4 and $3.60 and Cherokee Colony returned $4.20.

Other Wood starters who are likely to run in the Derby are Seeking the Gold, Cherokee Colony, Tejano and Brian’s Time.

Chris Antley, who rode Private Terms for the first time in the Gotham, gave the colt a masterful ride Saturday. Antley, a 22-year-old who is second in the Aqueduct jockey standings, has never ridden in a Kentucky Derby and was making his first appearance in a Wood.

Breaking from the No. 6 post, Private Terms was dropped to the rail in the quick run to the first turn and he and Antley settled into fifth place going down the backstretch. Ballindaggin, a 90-1 shot, kept the lead for three-quarters of a mile, with Seeking the Gold and Tejano right behind him.

The cheap speed began to back up on the turn, and while Seeking the Gold and Tejano battled up front, Cherokee Colony couldn’t find room on the outside and jockey Jorge Velasquez had to re-route him to the rail.

At the eighth pole, Tejano had nothing in reserve, Seeking the Gold was running evenly and Antley moved Private Terms off the rail. The winner collared Seeking the Gold at the sixteenth pole, where Antley put away his whip and hand rode him to the wire.

“This horse kicked in and fired when I asked him,” Antley said. “He’s just like a push button, which is a scary feeling but a good scary feeling. I think he’ll be able to handle the mile and a quarter (the Derby distance). He finished well, and past the wire he galloped out strongly.”

Private Terms runs with bandages on his front legs, usually a warning that a horse might have fragile props. Not so with this colt, Hadry says.

“I run about 90% of my horses this way,” the trainer said. “It doesn’t mean anything, it’s just that I think it takes away some of the shock when their front feet hit the ground.”

Cherokee Colony, who had made only two starts this year, winning the Flamingo at Hialeah and running fourth in the Florida Derby at Gulfstream Park almost seven weeks ago, seemed doomed from the start. The last horse to be loaded, he stumbled leaving the gate, couldn’t find room and was moved to the rail on the turn, then had to be brought back out to the middle of the track at the top of the stretch.

“Stumbling out of the gate didn’t help at all,” Velasquez said. “At the three-eighths pole, I thought we were going to win, but then we couldn’t get clear until there was an eighth of a mile left.

“When you’re the last horse to go in the gate, you’ve got no chance to look around, you’re in there and then you’re gone. Maybe he was spread out behind when he walked in, that sometimes causes a horse to stumble.”

Velasquez still likes Cherokee Colony’s chances in the Kentucky Derby and is hoping he gets another chance to ride the colt against Private Terms. Seeking the Gold got his second chance Saturday, and had only second-place money to show for it.

Horse Racing Notes

The crowd on a chilly day was only 20,149. . . . Trainer Wayne Lukas thought Tejano ran a good race, even though the Hollywood Futurity winner was beaten for the fourth straight time this year, and he thought his other starter, Dynaformer, was victimized by being too far back early. Lukas said he would re-evaluate his Kentucky Derby hopefuls before deciding who runs at Churchill Downs. . . . Angel Cordero, riding Brian’s Time for the first time, said that the horse finished well after trailing by 11 lengths early, but the speed horses in front didn’t slow down, and that’s what hurt his comeback chances. . . . Private Terms’ dam, Laughter, was out of the same dam as Ruffian, who was undefeated for Stuart Janney Jr. before she broke down and died in a match race at Belmont Park against Kentucky Derby winner Foolish Pleasure in 1975. . . . “We could have won lots of other Wood Memorials with a time like we ran today,” said Shug McGaughey, Seeking the Gold’s trainer. . . . The early fractions for the Wood were :46 4/5 for a half-mile, 1:10 2/5 for three-quarters and 1:34 4/5 for the mile.