Derby Gets a Lady’s Touch: Winning Colors : At This Dance, Filly Leads All the Way

The lady is a champ, and the Kentucky Derby press corps won’t have trainer Wayne Lukas to kick around anymore.

Winning Colors, the last of the 17 horses to leave the barn Saturday and be led on the long walk from the backstretch to the paddock at Churchill Downs, was first the rest of the afternoon--out of the gate, at the wire and every step in between--to win the 114th Derby by a neck over Forty Niner in a manner that Lukas thought she would.

In becoming the third filly--after Regret in 1915 and Genuine Risk in 1980--to win the Derby, Winning Colors enabled Lukas to end his frustrations here. In 7 years of trying with 10 colts and 2 fillies who couldn’t finish higher than third, Lukas finally made it to the winner’s circle--with a salt-and-pepper-colored Amazon who admittedly got more care from his 30-year-old son, Jeff, than from the boss of the organization.

Winning Colors’ run to the roses came in the same way that she defeated all comers in five of her six previous races. From the No. 11 stall, jockey Gary Stevens quickly broke Gene Klein’s 1,100-pound filly from the gate and allowed her to lope along on an easy lead most of the way around, leaving her with enough in the boiler to hold off Forty Niner at the wire.

After Forty Niner, it was three lengths back to Risen Star, who had a half-length on Proper Reality, the fourth-place finisher. Private Terms, undefeated in seven races and trying to become the fifth unbeaten horse to win a Derby, instead wound up ninth, losing by more than 6 lengths and becoming the ninth straight favorite to fall in the opening round of the Triple Crown.

“My horse was galloping, and I seemed to have a lot of horse going down the backstretch,” said Chris Antley, Private Term’s rider. “But then he just seemed to quit running. By the time we got to the 5/16th pole, I was talking to myself. I was asking, ‘Where’s it at?’ ”

After Proper Reality, the rest of Saturday’s trailers were, in order, Regal Classic, Brian’s Time, Seeking the Gold, Cefis, Private Terms, Jim’s Orbit, Granacus, Lively One, Din’s Dancer, Kingpost, Intensive Command, Purdue King and Sea Trek.

After the race, Klein and Wayne Lukas announced that Winning Colors, a $575,000 yearling purchase, would run in the Preakness, the next leg of the Triple Crown at Pimlico in two weeks and a race a sixteenth of a mile shorter than the 1-mile Derby. Already there are visions of a match-race rematch between Winning Colors and Forty Niner in Baltimore, where four fillies have won the Preakness, but none in 64 years.

With a crowd of 137,694, the fourth largest in Derby history, inhaling mint juleps, looking for The Beautiful People and losing confidence in Winning Colors by the minute in 80-degree sunshine, Private Terms moved ahead of the filly as the favorite shortly before post time.

When the starting bell rang, there was only $4,734 difference between the two horses in the win pool, and that was the last time anyone surpassed Winning Colors.

The Kentucky-bred Caro-All Rainbows offspring earned $611,200 of the $786,200 total purse for the 67-year-old Klein, the former San Diego Chargers’ owner who entered racing six years ago after some friends of his wife, Joyce, piqued her interest in the sport.

Winning Colors, whose winning margin was the smallest since Majestic Prince long-necked Arts and Letters at the wire in the 1969 Derby, carried 121 pounds, 5 fewer than her opponents, and paid $8.80, $5.20 and $4.60; Forty Niner, part of the Woody Stephens-trained entry with Cefis, paid $5.20 and $4.60; and Risen Star, the Louisiana Derby winner, paid $5.40.

Winning Colors’ time of 2:02 1/5, 2 4/5 seconds off Secretariat’s record in 1973, compares favorably with several of the winning times of recent years.

Typical of a Derby with a cluttered field, there were several horses in trouble. The three-eighths pole was a land mine, with Granacus and jockey Jacinto Vasquez caught trying to get through a keyhole, clipping the heels of a horse in front and almost going down.

That incident bothered Brian’s Time and Angel Cordero in their wake. Lively One, with Bill Shoemaker trying to win his fifth Derby, got bumped when caught between horses. Shoemaker said that Lively One had quit running hard by that time, anyway.

Forty Niner, breaking from the outside post, ran a peculiar race under Pat Day. They were able to start quickly and angle to the inside by the end of the long run to the first turn, then backed off Winning Colors, who claimed the lead and the rail and discouraged what little speed was on the inside.

“The filly was just galloping into the first turn,” said Shoemaker, who had a distant view on Lively One. “Forty Niner had the speed to put some pressure on her, but they didn’t use it.”

Day dropped Forty Niner back as far as fourth at the three-quarter mark, with Winning Colors leading Seeking the Gold by 4 lengths and Proper Reality by 5 at that point. Forty Niner was fifth after a mile, then began to move up on the turn. At the eighth pole, Day thought he was going to win.

“I could see that the filly was tiring,” Day said. “But she wouldn’t give up. I lost a lot of ground coming around on the last turn. Earlier, I could have stayed closer to the filly, but I was riding to win the race.”

What Day meant was that a speed duel with Winning Colors would also have cooked Forty Niner, who has finished second in three of his last four races.

Stevens, 25, won his first Derby on the fourth try. “We were running hard at the three-eighths pole,” Stevens said. “She was going full speed, while the other horses were only creeping, just getting started.”

Stevens thought he would hold the lead at that point. He went to the whip with his left hand through the stretch.

A week ago, Lukas said that if the field allowed Winning Colors a :47 first half-mile, “the rest of ‘em can run up the white flag.”

Winning Colors was allowed almost that, :46 4/5, and the other fractions were 1:11 2/5 for 6 furlongs and 1:36 for a mile.

“She’s a big filly, she’s got a nice, long stride and she’s got speed,” Shoemaker said after the race. “What else could you ask for?”

After a Kentucky Derby victory over the 16 boys who went home with their tails between their legs, not much.