SANTA ANITA : Dinard Has Owner Thinking Derby

To Allen Paulson, a man who builds fast airplanes, the French town of Dinard was nothing but a dot on a map, one of more than a hundred checkpoints on his record-setting, east-west circumnavigation of the globe in one of his Gulfstream IV executive jets.

Today, almost four years later, Paulson has put Dinard on the map of American racing, with a course plotted straight to the Kentucky Derby in May. The undefeated 3-year-old who carries that town’s name has become the talk of the race track in the wake of his dazzling victory last Friday at Santa Anita in the Los Feliz Stakes.

“I hope to be explaining what Dinard is to a lot of people before it’s all over,’ Paulson said.

Paulson was in Southern California this week for, among other things, today’s Hollywood Park board of directors meeting that will consider the nomination of Steve Wynn to replace Marje Everett as chairman and chief executive officer. Paulson also was hoping to pick up a tape of the Los Feliz from his trainer, Dick Lundy.

“I haven’t seen it yet,” Paulson said. “But from what Chris McCarron told me, the horse did it effortlessly. He’s got me thinking about the Derby all right.”

The performance of Dinard (pronounced dee-NAHR) left few doubters. He won by six lengths, with no urging from McCarron, and stopped the clock in 1:35 3/5 for the mile.

“Awesome,” said Ron McAnally, who saddled favored Olympio, the runner-up.

“Very polished,” said trainer Neil Drysdale, a bystander. “He ran as if he were prepared to do anything asked of him.”

Even the taciturn Dick Lundy let out a whoop as he watched the race via simulcast at Del Mar.

“How good is this horse?” Lundy later wondered as he talked with his assistant, Alex Hassinger, who handles the Paulson horses at Santa Anita. Lundy is based at Paulson’s Brookside Farm in Bonsall as trainer and racing manager of the entire operation.

The next morning Lundy was at Santa Anita, looking in on his new star and fielding questions from the suddenly attentive racing press. In a year that seems wide open when it comes to Kentucky Derby prospects, a performance such as Dinard’s is guaranteed to spark interest--especially since four of the last five Derby winners have begun their campaigns in California.

Although Dinard clearly possesses speed and the poise of a much older horse, there is something missing that nags at Paulson. His Derby horse is a gelding.

“I can’t say I’m happy about it,” the owner said. “But you can’t do anything to change it. I understand why it was done. But I’m sure that there were times when John Henry’s people wished . . . .”

Dinard was gelded last August when it became clear to Lundy that the colt’s behavior had become slave to his testosterone levels.

“It was just getting real, real difficult to do anything with him,” the trainer said with obvious understatement. “We needed to find out what kind of ability he had.”

Ironically, were it not for a lucky twist of fate more than 42 years ago, there may not have been a Dinard at all.

On the afternoon of Oct. 9, 1948, at Laurel Race Course in Maryland, a 3-year-old filly named Penny Dare tripped and fell while pressing the leaders at the half-mile pole of a $3,000 allowance race. Penny Dare managed to survive the spill with only cuts and bruises, and she recovered sufficiently to be bred to the up-and-coming stallion Princequillo the next spring.

Penny Dare died after foaling a colt, later named Prince Dare. Racing for Walter Edgar, a leading Maryland breeder, Prince Dare won a local stakes at 2 and later became a decent stallion. His best runner was the filly Daring Step, who produced Daring Bidder, the dam of Dinard.

Dinard comes from the first crop of Paulson’s stallion Strawberry Road. Strawberry Road was bred in Australia, where he raced through mid-1984. Later that year he ran in Germany, France, at Hollywood Park in the first Breeders’ Cup Turf, and then in the Japan Cup.

In 1985 Strawberry Road was back in Europe, racing for Paulson, Daniel Wildenstein and Bruce McNall. He ran in France and England, winning two stakes, then came to New York, where he finished second in the Breeders’ Cup Turf to Pebbles.

Paulson bought out his partners and Strawberry Road spent his final days at the track with Charlie Whittingham in California. Strawberry Road’s groom back then was Alex Hassinger, who supervises the Paulson horses at Santa Anita, including Dinard. And to take the connection one step further, Lundy was Whittingham’s chief assistant from 1976 through 1981.

“Charlie Whittingham has shown us the way to win the Kentucky Derby,” said Lundy, who has yet to train a Derby starter. “Don’t use them too hard at 2. Run in the Santa Anita Derby, then ship back to Kentucky two weeks before the race.”

The formula worked for Whittingham in 1986 with Ferdinand and in 1989 with Sunday Silence. This year, Whittingham is pinning his hopes on the Mr. Prospector colt Excavate, who lost some training time with a bruised foot but may yet collide with Dinard.

“I ran into Charlie in the racing office a few minutes after Dinard’s race,” Hassinger said. “He just shook my hand and winked. But if you know Charlie, that said it all.”

Horse Racing Notes

Champion mare Bayakoa continues to train well for her 1991 debut in the Santa Maria Handicap on Feb. 2. The 7-year-old Argentine worked seven furlongs last Monday and will have a key mile work this Sunday. . . . A Wild Ride, winner of the El Encino Stakes on Jan. 12, was purchased for $525,000 on Tuesday at Keeneland by Japanese breeder Zenya Yoshida, the man who owns Sunday Silence. . . . Petite Ile, the leading candidate for the 1990 female turf Eclipse Award, bruised a foot last week and will not make the Feb. 18 San Luis Obispo Handicap as planned, according to trainer Eddie Gregson.

Dick Lundy’s tentative plans are to run Dinard in the San Rafael Stakes on March 3, then bring him back in the Santa Anita Derby. That is the same route preferred by owner John Mabee and trainer Ian P.D. Jory for Best Pal, California’s top 2-year-old of 1990, who is in light training at Hollywood Park. . . . Dinard, France, is a resort town of about 10,000 people located in Brittany on the Gulf of St. Malo, at the mouth of the estuary leading to the Rance River.