Stakes Race Gives Ron McAnally Chance to Visit Old Kentucky Home

The last time Ron McAnally did any running in these parts, he was trying to escape from the orphanage where he had been dropped off when he was 5.

Twice, the young McAnally attempted to run away from the Covington Protestant Children’s Home. Once, he changed his mind and went back. The other time, he was picked up in downtown Covington and returned to the orphanage.

“It wasn’t easy getting out, either,” McAnally remembered Thursday. “I had to cross a slate roof, and there was a two-story drop to the ground.”

McAnally, 57, will do some more “running” in Northern Kentucky Saturday. Tight Spot, one of his candidates for this year’s Kentucky Derby, is the 5-1 third choice, behind favorites Summer Squall and Bright Again, in the $500,000 Jim Beam Stakes at Turfway Park.

McAnally was born in Covington, not far from the old Latonia Race Course and only a 10-minute drive from Turfway. His mother died of tuberculosis when he was 5. His father, who had four other young children, worked as a dispatcher for a cab company in Cincinnati and couldn’t handle the family. The five children were sent to the orphanage.

McAnally spent 12 years there. His memories of the place are generally good, but one of his early jobs was enough to send him over the wall twice.

“I was the dishwasher,” he said. “It was just me and one other guy. We had to wash the dishes for everybody--200 kids--three times a day.”

McAnally smiled and said: “You know, I’m still washing them.”

His wife, Debbie, is in Europe, visiting one of their daughters who is studying on a college exchange program. Debbie is a 50% owner of Silver Ending, another Derby hopeful who may run in the Blue Grass Stakes on April 14 at Keeneland in Lexington, Ky., 75 miles south of here.

McAnally didn’t have to wash dishes Thursday night. He and his two sisters, who are married to business executives in this area, went out to dinner. McAnally’s brothers live in Southern California, one working for the Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Assn. and the other running a restaurant near Del Mar.

“It was not the perfect way to grow up,” McAnally said of the orphanage. “But at least we had the advantage of being family and all being in there together. You hear about families where the kids are fighting all the time, even when they grow up. We’re so close that I can’t imagine any of us ever having a fight.”

McAnally’s father was in his 40s when he died of a heart attack. Joe, one of Ron’s brothers, was the only child who lived with the father after leaving the orphanage.

McAnally has become a successful California trainer and is eligible for election to horse racing’s Hall of Fame in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., this year, but he is mindful of his roots. He wrote a check just the other day for the orphanage where he grew up. And today, while visiting Keeneland, he’ll look in on John Henry, who at 15 is a leading attraction at the Kentucky Horse Park. With McAnally as trainer, John Henry won horse-of-the-year titles in 1981 and ‘84, and the grass-loving gelding was instrumental in McAnally being voted trainer of the year in 1981. John Henry is also on the Hall of Fame ballot this year.

McAnally has a picture at home in Pasadena of him and his grandfather, who introduced him to racing at Gulfstream Park in Florida when he was about 6.

After an Air Force hitch, McAnally tried studying engineering at the University of Cincinnati, but admits that he wasn’t much of a student. He wound up living in the San Fernando Valley with an uncle, trainer Reggie Cornell. McAnally started as a chauffeur for Cornell, who quit driving after his brother was seriously injured in an auto accident in Canada. But McAnally wound up breaking Silky Sullivan, the charismatic, Cornell-trained Santa Anita Derby winner who bombed out, at 2-1, in the 1958 Kentucky Derby.

McAnally has started four horses in the Kentucky Derby, finishing fourth with Super Moment in 1980, fourth with Water Bank and 13th with Cassaleria in 1982 and fifth with Hawkster last year.

The best young horse McAnally has ever trained, however, was Donut King. He bought him for $16,000 at a Del Mar yearling sale for Verne Winchell, the doughnut man. As a 2-year-old, Donut King won the Champagne Stakes at Aqueduct, beating the intrepid Jaipur and Crimson Satan, who was voted the division champion.

The following year, Donut King probably should have won the Wood Memorial, his final prep for the Derby. McAnally told his jockey, Manny Ycaza, that Sunrise County, the Wood favorite, had a terrible habit of lugging out in the stretch. Ycaza waited as long as he could before trying to pass Sunrise County, but Donut King still got caught in the drift and finished third, beaten by less than a length. Sunrise County was disqualified from first to third, and the victory went to Admiral’s Voyage, who had finished second.

Full of confidence, McAnally sent Donut King to Churchill Downs. The Monday before the Derby, after working the race distance of 1 1/4 miles, Donut King came back lame and his career was over.

Now McAnally is at Turfway Park for the first time, chasing another Derby with another Verne Winchell horse, Tight Spot. When the trainer got here, memories of that Northern Kentucky orphanage and Donut King’s Derby miss were almost bound to cross at that intersection of the mind.

Horse Racing Notes

Summer Squall, the 8-5 favorite in the 1 1/8-mile Jim Beam Stakes, drew the No. 1 post position, which is no longer considered a disadvantage at Turfway Park. . . . Pat Day, who has won with all three of his previous Jim Beam mounts, will ride Summer Squall. Outside them, in order, will be Sluki, Bright Again, Yonder, Seven Spades, Power Lunch, Top Snob, Fighting Fantasy, Private School and Tight Spot. . . . Corey Black will ride Tight Spot, and Alex Solis is in from Santa Anita to ride Power Lunch, the Wayne Lukas trainee who broke his maiden on March 8 at Oaklawn Park. . . . With rain forecast for today and Saturday, there’s a chance of an off track.

Three 3-year-olds who ran earlier in California--Tarascon, Individualist I and Hawaiian Pass--are entered in Saturday’s Rebel, a 1 1/16-mile race at Oaklawn Park. Tarascon is the 2-1 favorite in an 11-horse field. . . . Smelly, a prominent 3-year-old, will face nine opponents Saturday at Garden State Park in the Cherry Hill Mile. . . . Brown Bess heads the five-horse field Saturday at Santa Anita in the $200,000 Santa Barbara Handicap, a 1 1/4-mile grass race for fillies and mares. Also running are Royal Touch, Estrella Fuega, Double Wedge and Isabella Ra.