Unbridled Regains Touch in Classic : Horse racing: Winner ends a drought dating to the Kentucky Derby by squeezing between Ibn Bey and Thirty Six Red to win $3-million event.

Unbridled, the 3-year-old colt who lost the winning touch after taking the Kentucky Derby in May, won the $3-million Breeders’ Cup Classic by one length over Ibn Bey Saturday at Belmont Park, thrusting himself back into the horse-of-the-year picture.

Carl Nafzger, Unbridled’s trainer, cast his vote for the colt as horse of the year, but Nafzger doesn’t have a vote. Those who do--about 200 turf writers, Daily Racing Form representatives and track racing secretaries--have these horses to consider:

--Unbridled, who won the big race at the beginning and the end of the year. He also won the Florida Derby, but otherwise he won only one allowance race in eight starts. Saturday’s victory was his first in five stakes starts since the Kentucky Derby.

--Criminal Type, who raced from coast to coast, winning four consecutive major stakes and numbering Sunday Silence, Easy Goer and Housebuster among his victims. Criminal Type missed the Breeders’ Cup because of injury.

--Meadow Star, whose five-length victory in Saturday’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies extended her undefeated string to seven races.

--Go For Wand, who was destroyed after breaking down about 100 yards from home in a fierce duel with Bayakoa in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff. Many voters favored Go For Wand for horse of the year before the Distaff, and she will still poll some sympathy votes.

Reunited with jockey Pat Day, Unbridled overcame his outside post position in a 14-horse field. They were in 12th place after three-quarters of a mile in the 1 1/4-mile race before Day moved Unbridled along the rail at the top of the stretch, then squeezed him between Thirty Six Red and Ibn Bey with about a sixteenth of a mile to run.

Ibn Bey, a 38-1 shot from England, finished second, a length in front of Thirty Six Red, who nosed out Lively One for third place. Rhythm, the 5-2 favorite, finished eighth and other disappointments in the Classic were Flying Continental and Dispersal, who finished 11th and 12th, respectively.

The Breeders’ Cup’s international selection panel, which was under fire from trainer Gary Jones because his Quiet American was excluded from the Classic, may have had the last laugh. There had been suggestions that Ibn Bey and Lively One lacked the credentials to be included in the field.

Unbridled, coupled in the betting with Home at Last, who was eased by his jockey, Jerry Bailey, after having no chance in the stretch, paid $15.20 to win and was timed in a slow 2:02 1/5.

Day won the first Classic with another longshot, Wild Again, at Hollywood Park in 1984. He has won five Breeders’ Cup races, one fewer than Laffit Pincay, who won aboard Bayakoa on Saturday. Jose Santos, the only jockey to win two Breeders’ Cup races Saturday, also has five victory in the seven-year-old series.

After winning the Florida Derby on Unbridled, Day switched to Summer Squall, and they finished second behind Unbridled in the Kentucky Derby. Summer Squall missed the Classic because in New York he could not run with the medication he uses for a bleeding problem, and the mount on Unbridled opened up when Craig Perret, who was on the colt in the Kentucky Derby, stayed with Rhythm.

“I knew this horse had one short run,” Day said. “He had to overcome a lot, with that post position, but there was a narrow opening in the stretch and he showed a tremendous amount of courage and got the money.”

First place was worth $1.35 million to owner Frances Genter, who is in her 90s. She attended the Kentucky Derby but was not among the 51,236 at Belmont Park Saturday.

Unbridled is also a bleeder, but Nafzger has been able to run him twice in New York without medication. The trainer said the colt was dehydrated Saturday much like he was in June when he finished fourth in the Belmont Stakes.

Nafzger said that Unbridled is finished for the year and will resume running next year.

Thirty Six Red, at 29-1, set swift early fractions, running six furlongs in 1:09 4/5 and the mile in 1:35 3/5. He had a two-length lead at the eighth pole before Ibn Bey, running for the first time on dirt, and Unbridled passed him. Lively One had traffic problems at the head of the stretch and his trainer, Charlie Whittingham, said they might have won if the horse could have gotten through.

“I was in great position at the quarter pole, and we were really flying,” said Alex Solis, who rode Lively One. “But then I had to take up. I got bumped around and we lost all chance.”