It Can Be Silver Ending to $1,500 Story

It’s a Derby that has something for everybody. There’s a horse in here who has never won. There’s a horse who has never lost. And there are a lot in between who have done plenty of both.

But what makes it unique is, there’s a horse in here who cost his owners only $1,500.

It’s a success story not even Horatio Alger would touch.

If Silver Ending wins the Derby, not a longshot by any means, it will be the most electrifying rags-to-riches scam since the Brink’s robbery. Only nobody was wearing ski masks. The moral of the story is, what’s so smart about horse trainers and breeders?

Consider the fact Silver Ending is a splendid-looking colt. His coat shines, his eyes have that famous look of eagles. His head is broad and proud. In a movie, he carries the good guys. Oh, his tail has this little strand of silver running through it. Maybe he worries a lot.

You get a clock on him and you think it’s broke. He’s as royally bred as the Prince of Wales.

And all this goes for 1,500 small ones?

You can’t get a used Volkswagen in Peoria for $1,500. It won’t buy you a weekend in Tulare. Guys spend that much on dinner.

You know what owners would spend to get a Derby candidate? How about all they have? How about millions for a stud fee for a live foal and thousands for the best feed, the best trainers, lodging, vet and security?

Ron McAnally knows all about it. He’s been training horses almost since he was 16. He grew up in one of those houses along the backstretch at Latonia, and he got to know more about horses than Geronimo.

Ron is one of the very best horse trainers there is. He trained John Henry, which is all you need to know about Ron McAnally right there.

You’ve heard of Man o’ War? Secretariat? Well, they were whole horses. When you talk of geldings, you begin with John Henry. John Henry was an $1,100 yearling who racked up a record $6.6 million in purses, won seven Eclipse Awards and was horse of the year twice, and won the Santa Anita Handicap, the Gold Cup and every other piece of track cutlery lying around.

A willful sort, he took a lot of training and bringing along, but he was in the right hands. Before McAnally, he was pretty much a sulky, leave-me-alone type who would put out only when he damn well felt like it. McAnally made him shape up.

So, trainer McAnally can tell a good horse from a plater when one goes by, and when he got a look at the yearling with the funny tail in the Keeneland Sales in 1988, he thought there had been some mistake. The horse he was looking at couldn’t be going for $1,500.

In the first place, he was by Silver Hawk, and McAnally knew all about Silver Hawk. He was the Irish-bred who had raced seven times in England and Ireland and had finished second in the Irish Derby. More important, he had sired Hawkster, a runner McAnally has turned into one of the best grass horses in the United States.

McAnally’s eyes narrowed as he looked for the catch. There was none. The $1,500 yearling was as sound as Swiss money. As they say around the race tracks, “He didn’t have a pimple on him.”

“He was faultless,” McAnally says. “He had the perfect Arabian head, he had perfect hind legs, and you couldn’t draw a better-looking horse with a brush and canvas.”

It was like finding a Rembrandt in a pile of calendars. The horse was in a consignment of cheap horses, and he had cost his owner-breeder $11,000 to bring to the sale. It was Disney stuff.

McAnally himself didn’t think he had a storybook horse. When he got back to L.A., he phoned his good pal, the restaurateur, Angelo Costanza, and asked: “How would you like to own half a race horse?”

“How much?” Costanza asked.

“Fifteen,” replied McAnally.

“Apiece?” Costanza wanted to know, thinking $15,000.

“Naw,” said McAnally, “750 apiece.”

“Excuse me,” said Costanza, “I thought you said 750.”

“I did,” McAnally told him.

Angie Costanza admits he’s been known to spend that on a daily double. A week’s torn tickets cost him more than that.

McAnally’s wife, Deborah, named the horse in honor of his two-toned tail, and the family was soon on the silver standard. Silver Ending was third in his first two outings, then ran a smasher in his third--a mile and a sixteenth in 1:43. He couldn’t quite catch up to Grand Canyon in the Hollywood Futurity, but who could? Grand Canyon took off in 1:33 flat for the mile.

Then came the shocker. Silver Ending couldn’t seem to get on track in the San Felipe at Santa Anita. After running from last to first three weeks previous in the El Camino Real, he lumbered to ninth behind Wayne Lukas’ Real Cash in the San Felipe.

Had the bubble burst? McAnally got suspicious when he noticed the rider, Gary Stevens, got an infection in his right eye from the flying sand. The race track was throwing clods of stinging sand Lawrence of Arabia couldn’t have gotten through. McAnally decided he should ship his horse to Arkansas.

Silver Ending won the Arkansas Derby by three widening lengths over Real Cash, the horse that had shuffled him back in the sand at Santa Anita a month before.

That made $638,900 the $1,500 beauty had won. That made five races he had won, with two thirds, in eight races.

Ron McAnally is like a guy playing with house money. He’s $637,400 ahead of this wheel.

He stood in front of shed row at Churchill Downs the other morning and showed a reporter the check stubs for $1,500 to Keeneland for a Kentucky Derby candidate--and $2,300 to a hotel in Lexington for that week. “And that’s not counting the air fare,” he grinned.

Silver Ending is the biggest bargain since Alaska. He wins the Derby, he’s the Comstock Lode. They ought to write a song about him. Come to think of it, maybe they already have. How about, “Silver Threads Among the Gold?” Ouch!