Jory Seeks a Ticket to Kentucky Today : Horse racing: Trainer’s hopes ride on Best Pal in the Santa Anita Derby.

When the gate opened for last year’s Kentucky Derby, Chris Speckert and Ian Jory, a couple of transplanted Britons who had saddled their first horses in the race, stood next to each other as the field ran down the stretch for the first time.

With the 15 horses battling for position, Jory could see that his horse, Video Ranger, was in trouble.

“Look at that s.o.b.,” Jory said. “He bumped my horse.”

“That’s my horse,” Speckert said rather sheepishly, referring to Pleasant Tap.

Pleasant Tap, at 40-1, finished third, and it was another three lengths back to Video Ranger, a 65-1 shot, in fourth place.

Jory figured that the bumping by Pleasant Tap cost Video Ranger 10 lengths. “Then the horse that did it finished ahead of us,” he said.

When Jory and his barn crew left Churchill Downs to return to California, they packed as many Kentucky Derby souvenirs as their suitcases would hold. “We figured we’d better get a lot of that stuff while we were there,” Jory said.

It might be souvenir time again for the Jory barn, because the young trainer is within one race of Churchill Downs redux. If Best Pal can win today’s $500,000 Santa Anita Derby, his next start will be in the Kentucky Derby on May 4.

The nine-horse field for the Santa Anita Derby is one of the toughest in the race’s 54-year history. Discounting Conveyor and Bounding Back, who have only one victory between them, the other seven horses have a composite record of 25 wins in 47 starts, including 17 stakes victories.

Despite the caliber of the competition, Jory is confident to the point of being cocky. He is out on a limb about the prospects of his 3-year-old gelding.

“I think we’ll win, and I think we’ll win by a few (lengths), Jory said. “My horse has improved so much since his last race. I think he’s at least six lengths better than he was that day.”

In his last race, which came after a three-month layoff, Best Pal was beaten by only a half-length, running behind Dinard and Apollo in the San Rafael Stakes. That was his first start since he won the Hollywood Futurity, his final appearance as a 2-year-old. Best Pal has six victories, one second and one third in nine starts, with earnings of more than $1 million.

His only off-the-board race was a sixth place in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Belmont Park in October. A bleeder, Best Pal runs with Lasix to alleviate the problem, but because of New York rules, he was unable to be treated before race. Best Pal didn’t bleed at Belmont, and Jory doesn’t use the lack of medication as an excuse. “At the head of the stretch, we were only a half-length off the lead, but then my horse didn’t fire,” Jory said.

Fly So Free won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, clinching the Eclipse Award as best 2-year-old, and with three more victories this year the Eastern-based colt has scared off most of his opposition back there and is the solid winter-book favorite to win the Kentucky Derby.

“I’m not impressed by Fly So Free,” Jory said. “He does just enough to win, and I don’t think he’s better than some of the horses we have in California. He hasn’t had the competition.”

Then Jory considered some of the other horses in the East: “Hansel (winner of the Jim Beam at Turfway Park) worries me, because he looks like a horse who’s on the improve. Meadow Star, she was all out just to beat fillies last time. And Cahill Road, he doesn’t have the seasoning.”

The way the Santa Anita Derby sets up, Jory sees Sea Cadet and Media Plan breaking the fastest, with Best Pal not far back. He looks for Dinard, Scan and Compelling Sound to join the pursuit going down the backstretch, and through the stretch he figures Best Pal will have to outrun Dinard and Scan.

Jory said that Best Pal had several obstacles when he ran in the San Rafael:

--He carried 121 pounds, three more than Dinard, on an off track. Today, all will carry 122 pounds, and the track will be fast.

--He hooked up with Apollo early, while Dinard loomed in third place, waiting to make his move.

--He finished next to the fence, in the deepest part of the track and where he doesn’t like to be.

“I was delighted with the way my horse ran in that race,” Jory said. “I thought he was about three or four lengths behind the other horses (in conditioning because of the layoff). I told myself going in that if he gets beat by more than five lengths, I’ll be worried. But if he loses by less than five, I’ll be happy. I was never more happy to lose a race than I was that one.”

Jory, 32, has been training on his own since 1986. Video Ranger, a horse he claimed from trainer Wayne Lukas for $40,000, was 36-1 in last year’s Santa Anita Derby and ran second, 4 1/2 lengths behind Mister Frisky at 3-5.

“This is a different race,” Jory said. “Last year, it was Mister Frisky and then the rest of the field. This year, it’s a real solid bunch.”

Horse Racing Notes

The first post parade today is at noon, with the Santa Anita Derby scheduled to be run as the fifth race because of national television coverage. . . . Mister Frisky, who almost died because of a throat abscess after running eighth in the Kentucky Derby and third in the Preakness, is back in training and will be paraded between races today. . . . Rafael Martinez is listed as the trainer of Video Ranger, with owner Myung Kwan Cho having an active hand in the management of the horse. The Cho-Martinez team is starting Bounding Back, a maiden, in the Santa Anita Derby. Bounding Back was named by Ian Jory’s wife, Timi Jory, an English professor who ponies horses for her husband.

Gary Stevens, who will ride Best Pal, has won two of the last three Santa Anita Derbys, with Mister Frisky last year and Winning Colors in 1988. . . . Olympio, Sea Cadet’s stablemate, is headed for the Arkansas Derby at Oaklawn Park on April 20. . . . Trainer Ron McAnally won the Santa Anita Derby in 1976 with An Act, the first horse he ever saddled in the race, and he has tried nine times for a second victory. . . . Habitony, the sire of Best Pal, won the Santa Anita Derby in 1977. . . . Compelling Sound is trainer Charlie Whittingham’s 22nd starter in the race. He has won with Temperate Sil and Sunday Silence. . . . Cloyce Box, the breeder and owner of Conveyor, caught 32 touchdown passes for the Detroit Lions from 1949 through ‘54, and played on two title teams.

Whittingham’s chief assistant, Rodney Rash, who has been with the stable for 16 years, will start training on his own, probably at the beginning of the Hollywood Park meeting April 24. . . . Hollywood Park, with an earlier scratch time of 2:30 p.m. the day before the races, will offer advance betting a day ahead of time. Fans will be able to buy the next day’s programs before the eighth race and make bets before they leave the track. The new program, which costs $1.25, will have 32 pages instead of 20 and carry limited four-race past-performance information on all the horses.

Julio Garcia, shaken up in a spill Thursday, will resume riding today. . . . Forty Niner Days, who outgamed Exbourne through the stretch to win the San Francisco Mile at Golden Gate Fields, will meet him again Sunday in the El Rincon Handicap at the same distance on the grass. There are 11 horses entered, with the high weights Exbourne, Kanatiyr and Blue Stag at 118 pounds apiece. Forty Niner Days, with 116, will be ridden by Laffit Pincay. Tim Doocy rode him at Golden Gate. . . . Little Brianne, who beat the champion Bayakoa twice at Santa Anita this season, will run today in the Oaklawn Budweiser Breeders’ Cup Handicap.

In the Caliente future book for the Kentucky Derby, Fly So Free is 2-1, Dinard 4-1, Best Pal 7-1, Meadow Star 10-1 and Hansel 15-1. . . . In a surprising development, J.T. Lundy has resigned as president of Calumet Farm and been replaced by trainer John T. Ward Jr. Calumet campaigned Criminal Type, last year’s horse of the year, and won an Eclipse Award as the country’s outstanding breeder. . . . Wayne Lukas, who nominated 27 horses at $600 apiece in the early deadline for the Kentucky Derby, has added Withallprobability, a filly, for the late fee of $4,500.