Tenney, Day Make Hall of Fame : Honors: Trainer slept in Swaps’ stall before 1955 Kentucky Derby victory. Jockey won eight races in a day.

Mesh Tenney, the cowboy who came from California to win the Kentucky Derby with Swaps in 1955, and Pat Day, a three-time Eclipse Award winner who has ridden more than 5,000 race-winners, have been elected to the Hall of Fame in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.

Also elected to the hall after a poll of 100 turf writers were Hill Prince, in the category of contemporary (post-World War II) male horses; Princess Rooney, contemporary female horses; and Black Helen, horses of yesteryear.

When Swaps, the Santa Anita Derby winner, was brought to Churchill Downs in 1955, Tenney was advised by Oscar Otis of the Daily Racing Form to “make sure that you take care of your horse.”

The New York newspaper reported that Tenney slept in his car near Swaps’ barn until he noticed a security guard had fallen asleep, and then the trainer moved into the colt’s stall.

“I don’t remember that part,” said Tenney, who lives in Safford, Ariz. “But we just wanted to be totally careful about the horse’s safety. I moved in four or five days before the Derby. I never did it before, and I never did it again.”

Nashua, who had won 10 of 12 starts and six in a row, finished second, 1 1/2 lengths behind Swaps, after going off the 13-10 favorite. The odds on Swaps were 5-2. Three months later, in a $100,000, winner-take-all match race at Arlington Park, Nashua beat Swaps, who ran despite having a tender foot.

In a telephone interview, Tenney recalled how he prepared Swaps for the Derby.

“I was told that the news media could put pressure on a new trainer at the Derby, and while they put pressure on me, it didn’t work,” Tenney said. “I kept telling them to go over and see (Sunny Jim) Fitzsimmons, Nashua’s trainer. I told them that that’s where the story was.”

Reporters thought that it was unusual that Tenney didn’t school Swaps in the gate and in the paddock at Churchill Downs before the Derby.

“He got slouchy while we were there,” Tenney said. “So I didn’t school him on purpose. I wanted him to get steamed up when he ran. And sure enough, (Bill) Shoemaker slapped him once out of the gate and he took off running.”

Swaps led almost all the way and held off Nashua’s rally in the stretch under Eddie Arcaro.

After winning the Santa Anita Derby, Tenney shipped Swaps to Churchill Downs for an 8 1/2-length victory in a prep race a week before the Derby. Swaps ran six furlongs in 1:10 1/5, almost breaking the track record.

The day before the Derby, Tenney breezed Swaps five furlongs in 1:02 3/5.

“That was a ridiculously slow time,” Tenney said. “But it was what I wanted, and it didn’t worry me. That race the week before had given the horse enough underneath him to win the Derby.”

Tenney, 83, trained from 1940 through 1973, and after working at his cattle ranch in Arizona he made a brief comeback in California in the 1980s. He trained 35 stakes winners, including Swaps; 1963 Preakness winner Candy Spots; Prove It; Olden Times and Roman In, a horse he said “would have been absolutely famous if he hadn’t had a crooked ankle.”

Day, 37, rode his 5,000th winner late last year and went over the $100-million mark in purses this year. He has won Breeders’ Cup races with Wild Again, Lady’s Secret, Epitome, Theatrical and Unbridled, plus Preaknesses with Tank’s Prospect and Summer Squall and he won the Belmont Stakes with Easy Goer. In 1989, he won eight races from nine mounts at Arlington, the best single riding performance in the history of North American racing.

There was a controversy last year when Day was not included on the ballot even though he was eligible, having ridden a minimum of 15 years. This year he outpolled a group that included Sandy Hawley, Eddie Delahoussaye, Jacinto Vasquez and Don Brumfield.

Tenney had been on the ballot before. “That’s the reason I was surprised I got in,” he said. “And it had been a long time since I had done anything really important.”

Hill Prince, owned and bred by Christopher T. Chenery and trained by Casey Hayes, was a champion for three years and was horse of the year in 1950.

Princess Rooney won 17 of 21 starts for Paula Tucker. Trained by Neil Drysdale, she won the Breeders’ Cup Distaff at Hollywood Park in 1984.

Black Helen, owned and trained by Col. E.R. Bradley, beat colts in the Florida Derby and the American Derby. She raced in the mid-1930s and won 15 of 22 starts.