COMMENTARY : Road to the Derby Is Already Crowded With Quality Models

They said the Berlin Wall would come down before the ever-conservative Mack Miller would take a 3-year-old to Florida to train toward the May 5 Kentucky Derby, and they were right.

The wall had crumbled and been transformed into a soft-drink marketing tool by the time Miller sent Red Ransom to Gulfstream Park in Hallandale, Fla., and stirred with his presence a caldron already brimming with promising 3-year-olds.

Rhythm is probably as unimposing a defending divisional champion as any of the last 11 who failed to win the Derby. The impressive Summer Squall, the imposing Red Ransom, Magical Mile, Champagneforashley, the best New York-bred 2-year-old ever, and the newly arrived Puerto Rican sensation, Mister Frisky, are undefeated. Adjudicating, Appealing Breeze, Roanoke, Slavic, Yonder and Canadian champion Sky Classic all sit in the front row of this particularly precocious class.

But no horse among the 282 colts, 24 geldings and 9 fillies eligible to try for the Triple Crown stands out as a legitimate Derby favorite.

The focus is fixed on an unusually large group that was not diminished significantly by a muscle injury suffered by Grand Canyon.

Miller has long claimed that only an extraordinary horse would take him to the Derby, and he has observed both the speed and “enormous stability,” he said, in Red Ransom necessary to lure the Hall of Fame trainer to the Triple Crown chase at age 68.

But no schedule has been announced by the trainer, whose cards typically are held close to the chest. The muscular son of Roberto, however, breezed three furlongs in 34 seconds Saturday, two seconds faster than the next-fastest horse on the work tab. The guess is that Miller is holding a pat hand.

The other most keenly anticipated debut of the winter is scheduled for Feb. 25, when Summer Squall--who is five for five--makes his first start since the Hopeful in the seven-furlong Deputy Minister Stakes at Gulfstream.

Slavic made his 3-year-old debut in a 1-1/16-mile allowance race Thursday at Gulfstream, winning by three-quarters of a length. That race was designed to move the Scotty Schulhofer-trained colt toward the March 3 Fountain of Youth.

In his last race as a 2-year-old, Slavic stumbled badly at the start of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, in which he was the favorite. Despite the critical mishap, the Danzig colt rallied to finish third behind Rhythm and Grand Canyon.

Last weekend, also at Gulfstream, Yonder left the impression that his 76-year-old trainer, Woody Stephens, could play a leading role in the Triple Crown when the Seattle Slew colt closed strongly to finish second in the seven-furlong Hutcheson Stakes.

Yonder is the only member of this cast to have won at one mile and gives the impression that he will become better as the distance becomes greater.

Roanoke, a huge 17-hand colt who was a narrowly beaten second in the Remsen, is a son of Pleasant Colony, who last season appeared to be more capable at a distance than most. Trainer J. Willard Thompson is eyeing the Fountain of Youth.

Rhythm also made his first start of the season in the Hutcheson, but with less than encouraging results for trainer Shug McGaughey and the Phipps Stable. The Breeders’ Cup winner finished a tired seventh.

But even if Rhythm doesn’t improve, McGaughey has yet to unveil Adjudicating, winner of the Cowdin and Champagne, and he also has promising Polish Numbers.

In California, Laz Barrera sent out Mister Frisky, who was 13 for 13 last season in Puerto Rico, to win the San Vicente Saturday at Santa Anita. Charlie Whittingham, who won the Derby with Ferdinand and Sunday Silence when neither headed anyone’s list in mid-February, is training the promising if equally little-known War Craft toward Kentucky.

If the plot is thick already, it soon will thicken further. As the weeks go by, the road to Kentucky seems only to be more crowded--and there seems to be an inordinately large number of Cadillacs going in the same direction.