Mr. Frisky Is Pride of His Family But Critics Say He’s Got No Class

In the Frisky family photo, only Mister Frisky is gainfully employed.

Mom is named Frisky Flyer. She started at the bottom and stayed there. After 20 races, she had earned only $18,955 and was retired for breeding in Florida. Since then, all but one of the kids have followed in her hoofprints.

First, she was bred to Fire Dancer, but that worked poorly. No one so much as bothered to name that colt. Charming Flyer was only a little better. At least he showed up for 24 races, but he managed to earn only $3,715. Miss Frisky never earned a dime, and Miss Frisky Lady scraped together $12,658 in the one year she raced.

Frisky Flyer was bred to Marsayas twice, in 1985 and ‘86, which says a good deal about the low esteem in which he was held. Marsayas’ fee was $1,500 with few takers. First, she foaled Miss Frisky Lady, then Mister Frisky, who was named for his mother, not, as some believe, after a brand of Puerto Rican cat food. Mister Frisky was better-looking than most of his relatives.

Had he not been an outstanding physical specimen, despite his small size, he would probably have sold for about $2,500 as a yearling, a typical price for a Marsayas colt. But Mister Frisky brought a final bid of $15,000--big money for a Marsayas--from Puerto Rican interests. At the time, $15,000 was probably enough to buy Marsayas himself.

But is the undefeated Mister Frisky genuine--really?

He is a heroic figure in Puerto Rico, where he won 13 races last year before being sent to Miami for the Florida Stallion Stakes, which he missed after suffering a minor injury while training at Calder. Since his training was assigned to Laz Barrera, a heroic figure in Puerto Rico himself since he won the Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes with Bold Forbes in 1976, Mister Frisky is 3 for 3 in Southern California.

The colt is also on top of most polls of Kentucky Derby contenders, even after Summer Squall’s very impressive victory Saturday in the Blue Grass Stakes. There are many so-called experts, apparently, who like Mister Frisky’s chances two weeks from Saturday at Churchill Downs. And then there are those firmly convinced that when the product of a union between Marsayas and Frisky Flyer, which stands only 60 inches at the withers, is tested for class, he will disintegrate--the dust-to-dust theory.

While Mister Frisky has won 16 races, the 26 other sons and daughters of Marsayas have won only 22 among them. Mister Frisky’s earnings, $402,625, easily surpass the total of all other Marsayas’ offspring, which is $118,918, $29,000 of that earned by the former-best Marsayas, Expert Eyes, who started 49 times.

Those applying the dust-to-dust theory to Mister Frisky contend that he simply is genetically incapable of becoming a top-class horse.