Florida Chills McGaughey’s Derby Hopes : Horse racing: He had three candidates, but will be mere spectator today.

There has been a high attrition rate among Kentucky Derby candidates training in Florida this winter, and the trainer pummeled the most has been Shug McGaughey. He has gone from holding aces to possibly holding the bag.

Gulfstream Park is running two Kentucky Derby prep races today--the $500,000 Florida Derby and the $50,000 Swale Stakes--and McGaughey, who has gone from an embarrassment of riches to plain embarrassment, won’t have a starter in either. The only 3-year-old he will be running is Polish Numbers, who as a nonwinner of two races is eligible for a $19,000 allowance earlier on the program.

A year ago, McGaughey won the Swale with Easy Goer, and, although Sunday Silence deflated that heralded colt in both the Kentucky Derby and Preakness, Easy Goer won the Belmont to give the trainer his first Triple Crown victory.

Early this year, McGaughey had two other Kentucky Derby contenders, but now all are question marks.

Rhythm, winner of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Gulfstream last fall and later voted the Eclipse Award as best 2-year-old colt, ran two dull races at Gulfstream and recently underwent surgery for a flipped palate. McGaughey has been told that there is a 50-50 chance that Rhythm will fully recover.

If Rhythm recovers, McGaughey will send him to either Kentucky or New York to prepare him for the Kentucky Derby on May 5.

Adjudicating, winner of two major stakes at Belmont Park last fall, started poorly in his training here this winter and has run only once, finishing third in a minor stake at Oaklawn Park last Saturday. Adjudicating, a son of Danzig, has McGaughey puzzled.

“He had the No. 1 post and didn’t do any running early at Oaklawn,” McGaughey said. “Then he started lugging in going down the backside, and when he saw the rail, he started jumping up and down. I just hope the race woke him up a little bit. It’s going to take a race or two before we know about him, but we’re shooting for the Arkansas Derby (at Oaklawn April 21).”

McGaughey said Slavic is the horse other trainers must beat in the Florida Derby, even though the colt ran sixth as the favorite in the Fountain of Youth two weeks ago. Unbridled, who scored his only two victories against mediocre horses at Arlington Park and Calder, is the 5-2 favorite and Slavic is 3-1. A Southland-based colt, Jack Kent Cooke’s Single Dawn, is 4-1.

“That allowance race that Slavic won before the Fountain of Youth may have taken more out of him than anybody thought,” McGaughey said. “But of the other horses down here, I think Slavic and Champagneforashley have the best chance of going to the Kentucky Derby and making their mark. Champagneforashley has trained better than any horse I’ve seen in Florida this year.”

Champagneforashley is undefeated in three starts but hasn’t run since Dec. 9. He will make his debut as a 3-year-old in Sunday’s Tampa Bay Derby, in Oldsmar, Fla., a strange place for a Kentucky Derby candidate.

Rounding out the nine-horse field for the 1 1/8-mile Florida Derby are Ross’s Warning, Sunny Serve, Top Snob, Country Day, Roanoke and Run Turn.

“I think the deep track here will be hard on the California horse (Single Dawn),” McGaughey said.

Horse Racing Notes

In the four years the Swale has been run, the winners have included Easy Goer, Seeking the Gold and Chief’s Crown. . . . The six-horse field is headed by undefeated Summer Squall, Housebuster and Senor Pete. Trainer Scotty Schulhofer, who trains Slavic and Senor Pete, could have a big day.

Craig Perret, who has been riding Rhythm, will be aboard Housebuster and will be riding Roanoke for the first time. Herb McCauley, who rode Roanoke to a fifth-place finish in the Fountain of Youth on March 3, refused to ride the horse today after trainer Willard Thompson wouldn’t guarantee him the mount through the Triple Crown.