Ruhlmann After Another Big Stakes Win

Ruhlmann is named for an interior designer in Germany who did exquisite work for the horse’s owners, Mr. and Mrs. Jerry Moss, and he does exquisite work on the race track when he is at his best.

“When he runs a big race,” trainer Charles Whittingham said, “it is very, very big. When he puts in a bad one, it is bad.”

Coming off two huge stakes victories at Santa Anita, Ruhlmann is the 5-2 favorite in the $1-million Pimlico Special Saturday.

In a 10-horse field where With Approval, the Canadian Triple Crown winner, is sixth choice at 10-1, Ruhlmann is eligible to be beaten. But that is never really easy.

Calumet’s Criminal Type (8-1 Saturday) ran Ruhlmann down in the 9-furlong San Antonio the last time he was beaten, but he had to shadow him through a half-mile in :45 2/5 and three-quarters in 1:09 4/5.

Whittingham was asked which of the field he thought might “go with” Ruhlmann’s speed. “If there is any (early speed),” the 77-year-old trainer said, “they won’t go with him for very long.”

Ruhlmann, by Mr. Leader, was a relative bargain for the Mosses (he founded A&M; records and the A is for Alpert). Trainer Bobby Frankel picked him, sight unseen, out of the Keeneland yearling sale for $40,000 and he has won $1,564,353. But it wasn’t simple.

As a 3-year-old, Ruhlmann was scary, and Whittingham thinks he might have scared himself as well as his owners, trainer and the competition.

Ruhlmann made everybody nervous when Frankel brought him to the 1988 Florida Derby. In his only race that year he had run away in the El Camino Real at Bay Meadows. Made the 9-5 favorite, he bled and ran eighth.

Given the appropriate medication, Ruhlmann went in the California Derby at Golden Gate in April. He was on the lead in the stretch when a horse clipped heels from behind. A third horse joined the collision and the winner, All Thee Power, was fatally injured when he went down after the wire.

Ruhlmann’s injuries weren’t serious but the accident aggravated a bone chip in his knee. After arthroscopic surgery he came back to the track in August. On Oct. 2 he won the Jamaica Handicap in New York, where medication is not permitted.

“He’s still hyper sometimes,” Whittingham said. “That was a bad crash he had, and horses don’t forget things like that.