SANTA ANITA : Even His Trainer Admits Music Prospector’s Prospects in Saturday’s Derby on Slim Side

Sitting outside Barn 109 at Santa Anita, nursing a cold, Steve Miyadi pointed to Barn 118, across the way.

“I used to sleep over there, in the tack room,” Miyadi said. “My wife, Rochelle--we weren’t married yet--slept at the other end. We worked for (trainer) John Russell.”

The day was ripe for reminiscing. Miyadi, who grew up in nearby Rosemead, remembered the first time he saw the Santa Anita Derby. “It was the year (1973) that Sham beat Linda’s Chief,” Miyadi said. “How old could I have been? About 15, I guess.”

Miyadi will presumably have a better seat Saturday when the young trainer starts Music Prospector, a 10-1 shot on the morning line, in the 53rd running of the Santa Anita Derby.

To get to the Kentucky Derby on May 5, Music Prospector probably must get Miyadi to the winner’s circle, and for that to happen, the Irish-raced colt must beat seven opponents, including the undefeated Mister Frisky, who is seeking his 16th straight victory.

Longshots like Music Prospector don’t win the Santa Anita Derby much anymore, and even Miyadi would be surprised by an upset Saturday, although running on dirt in America seems to agree with the colt. The last time a real outsider won this race was when Mighty Adversary paid $66.20 in 1984.

The hallmark of this Santa Anita Derby is speed, and Miyadi tried conjuring up a scenario that might throw the race to Music Prospector, who probably will be running just off the pace.

“If Mister Frisky and Real Cash hooked each other (in a speed duel), my horse might have a chance,” Miyadi said. “But considering the riders involved (Gary Stevens on Mister Frisky and Angel Cordero on Real Cash), that’s unlikely to happen. Two other riders, maybe, but not those two.”

Jeff Tufts, the Santa Anita linemaker, has made Mister Frisky the even-money favorite in the $500,000 race. Eight Santa Anita winners went on to win the Kentucky Derby, but after Affirmed in 1978 there was a 10-year gap in this progression before Winning Colors and Sunday Silence pulled off the California-Kentucky double the last two years.

The field in the 1 1/8-mile race lines up this way, with all horses carrying 122 pounds: Real Cash, with Angel Cordero riding, 2-1; Balla Cove, Russell Baze, 20-1; Single Dawn, Alex Solis, 15-1; Music Prospector, Frank Olivares, 10-1; Video Ranger, Eddie Delahoussaye, 30-1; Assyrian Pirate, Martin Pedroza, 20-1; Mister Frisky, Gary Stevens, 1-1, and Warcraft, Chris McCarron, 5-1.

Music Prospector won his first two starts in the United States, taking stakes at Bay Meadows and Santa Anita early this year, then he ran third, beaten by 6 1/4 lengths, in the one-mile San Felipe Handicap on March 18. Real Cash won the San Felipe in a wire-to-wire trip, finishing 5 1/2 lengths ahead of Warcraft.

“My horse made a move and then he hung,” Miyadi said. “Frank (Olivares) said that he had dead aim at the horses in front of him, but he came up empty.”

Music Prospector, a grandson of the crack sprinter and powerful sire, Mr. Prospector, sprinted four times in Ireland as a 2-year-old, winning just once. Just before that victory, Motohide Aoki, a Tokyo breeder and real estate man, bought the horse for about $100,000.

“Some of those races over there, he couldn’t even beat fillies,” Miyadi said. “Maybe it was a case of a dirt horse running on grass and not liking it.”

Music Prospector was sent to Miyadi just about the time the trainer was shifting his stable to Del Mar last summer. Without the work of Curley Ortiz, the colt might never have adjusted to American tracks.

“Foreign horses usually come over here after they’re older, at least 3 and maybe 4 or more,” Miyadi said. “So here I had this 2-year-old, and he wanted to make every gap on the race track down there. He also acted like he wanted to breed all the time. We had to break him all over again, and Curley did a nice job.”

It was at Del Mar that Miyadi scored the biggest victory of his four-year career as a head trainer, winning last year’s Del Mar Futurity with Drag Race. That colt’s future is on grass.

Before Miyadi’s mother died of cancer, she made her two sons and one daughter promise that they’d prepare for their futures by going to college. Steve Miyadi, who had been going to the races with his father since he was 10, earned a degree in accounting at UC Santa Barbara, but a career at the track was always on the front burner. He chose his major only because those courses came easy for him.

Besides Russell, Miyadi also worked under trainers Richard Cross and Mike Mitchell. Miyadi’s wife, Rochelle, works for her husband, ponying horses and helping at the barn. Their 3-year-old son, C.J., was all over the place the other day, seeing what his parents were up to.

Since Miyadi left college, satellite betting has come to the Southland, and one of the locations is in Santa Barbara.

“It’s a good thing they didn’t have that when I was there,” Miyadi said. “Can you imagine? They would have never seen me at class.”

Horse Racing Notes

The other half of the racing doubleheader on ABC-TV Saturday is as bland as the Santa Anita Derby is intriguing. At Gulfstream Park, 12 second-rate 3-year-olds will run in what is almost guaranteed to be the least important of the Kentucky Derby preps. Run Turn, third in the Florida Derby, may go off the favorite.

An 11-horse field is entered in the Gotham at Aqueduct, with Rhythm, last year’s champion 2-year-old colt, making his first start since undergoing throat surgery last month. Others in the race are Burnt Hills, Senor Pete and the Wayne Lukas-trained pair of Kentucky Jazz and Richard R. Laffit Pincay, with no mount in the Santa Anita Derby, a race he has won seven times, will ride Richard R.

Lukas, who also trains Real Cash, plans to run Land Rush in the Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland a week from Saturday and will send Hail Atlantis, the filly, to the Arkansas Derby at Oaklawn Park on April 21.

All of the Santa Anita Derby starters are eligible for the Triple Crown races. . . . Steinlen, last year’s male turf champion, will make his second try for his first victory this year when he runs Sunday in the El Rincon Handicap. Steinlen won the stake in 1988 and was second in it last year.