Strike The Gold Strikes Roses : Kentucky Derby: Strong stretch run brings 1 3/4-length victory over Best Pal in 2:03. Mane Minister finishes third.

In the starting gate, Strike The Gold was not cooperating. His head was down. He bucked once.

“It looked like he got mad,” said Jerry Bailey, who was sitting on Hansel, the horse in the stall to the right of Strike The Gold.

This was on Saturday at Churchill Downs, seconds before the start of the 117th Kentucky Derby. “It’s always loud at the Derby,” said Chris Antley, who was trying to keep Strike The Gold composed. “He reared up, but it wasn’t so bad.”

Strike The Gold’s deportment before the start might have been poor, but once the gate opened he did everything Antley required, roaring through the stretch for a 1 3/4-length victory. The next two horses across the line had finished second and fourth, respectively, in the Santa Anita Derby. Best Pal, attempting to become the first gelding since 1929 to win the Derby, found room on the fence to finish second, 1 3/4 lengths ahead of Mane Minister, an 86-1 shot.

In a fairly clean race considering the 16-horse field, Mane Minister was a head better than Green Alligator, the California Derby winner who had three-quarters of a length on Fly So Free, the 12th consecutive champion 2-year-old not to win the Derby.

After Fly So Free, the order of finish was Quintana, Paulrus, Sea Cadet, Corporate Report, Hansel, Happy Jazz Band, Lost Mountain, Another Review, Alydavid, Wilder Than Ever and Forty Something.

The crowd of 135,554, fifth largest for a Derby, had trouble deciding on a favorite, and after Hansel went off at 5-2, he became the 12th consecutive public choice to wind up with crabgrass instead of the roses at Churchill Downs. Strike The Gold beat him by more than 12 lengths.

Strike The Gold, the third betting choice after Hansel and the 3-1 Fly So Free, paid $11.60, $6.20 and $5.40. Best Pal’s prices were $6.40 and $5.40, and Mane Minister’s show payoff was $25.60. Strike The Gold’s time for the 1 1/4 miles was a slow 2:03, and he earned a record $655,800 from the $905,800 purse. A $2 exacta on Strike The Gold and Best Pal paid $73.40.

Trainer Nick Zito had said that Strike The Gold “comes from out of the clouds,” and after a half-mile Saturday the colt was ahead of only four horses and about 10 1/2 lengths behind Sea Cadet, who had gone to the lead as expected.

“I was not really worried,” Antley said. “I didn’t want too many traffic problems, and hopefully he would run aggressively enough to stay near the field without dropping 40 lengths out of it. Down the backside, he started running and was picking up horses on his own.”

Strike The Gold moved up to 10th. Then the competition was reduced to five by the time the field hit the far turn. The first half-mile was run in 46 2/5 seconds, with the tote board showing 1:11 1/5 for three-quarters and 1:37 2/5 for the mile.

At the top of Churchill Downs’ punishing 1,234 1/2-foot stretch, the contenders were fanned across the track. Sea Cadet, who was on the inside, had had enough. Next to him was Hansel, also tiring badly, and outside him were Corporate Report and Mane Minister.

In his box seat, Zito took a quick look skyward and said under his breath, “Show me the way.” Zito said later that he was talking to “the Man upstairs.”

As Strike The Gold made his burst in the middle of the track, Best Pal and jockey Gary Stevens were sneaking up along the rail, behind Sea Cadet. Chris McCarron hit Sea Cadet a couple of times left-handed, and Sea Cadet came out enough to enable Best Pal to get through.

Stevens, the winner of the 1988 Derby with the filly Winning Colors, had that heady feeling again. “I had a ton of horse, and we didn’t move until the quarter pole,” Stevens said. “I saw a flash on the far outside, but I wasn’t sure who it was.”

That blur was Strike The Gold, drifting farther out toward the center of the track under Antley’s stick. “By the time I got to the leaders, I could see that the riders in front of me were riding already,” Antley said, “and it looked like they had been riding for some time. I had the feeling we’d win even before we got to the quarter pole.”

Strike The Gold’s equal-partner owners--New Yorkers Giles Brophy, William Condren and Joseph Cornacchia--bought the colt as an unraced 2-year-old last year in a $3-million package that included six other well-bred horses. Financially strapped Calumet Farm, which has raced eight Derby winners, required that Brophy and his partners buy all seven horses to get Strike The Gold. “We were held hostage,” Zito said.

Strike The Gold is a son of Alydar, who became a leading sire after heartbreaking second-place finishes to Affirmed in all three Triple Crown races--the Derby, the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes--in 1978. Alydar, injured in a stall accident at Calumet last year, was destroyed on Nov. 15, the day Strike The Gold won his first race in his third start, beating maidens at Aqueduct.

At Gulfstream Park this winter, Strike The Gold failed to win in three races, but he always ran well and against the top horses. Cahill Road beat him by less than two lengths; he was second to Fly So Free by a length in the Florida Derby. Zito predicted that Strike The Gold would beat Fly So Free the next time, and while other trainers ducked the Florida Derby winner, Strike The Gold followed him to Keeneland and made another strong late move to win by three lengths in the Blue Grass Stakes.

“That last race (the Blue Grass) was his first true race,” Antley said. Still, Strike The Gold was not as highly regarded as Hansel and Fly So Free going into the Derby, and the naysayers multiplied after Wednesday’s slow half-mile workout in 51 2/5 seconds.

“The workout before, he had finished up (the last quarter-mile) in 22 seconds,” Zito said. “When I saw that work, I knew that you could bet the ranch house on this horse. We trained this horse exactly the way we did coming up to the Blue Grass. I’m not Charlie Whittingham, but like Charlie says, ‘I stick to the game plan.’ ”

A year ago, Zito brought a horse to the Derby for the first time, and Thirty Six Red, the Wood Memorial winner, was a tired, badly beaten ninth. Thirty Six Red had only two weeks between the Wood and the Derby, and this time Strike The Gold had an extra week, which Zito thought might make a difference.

On Saturday, two hours before the Derby, Thirty Six Red, who lost six consecutive races after his Derby flop, put victories back to back by taking the Churchill Downs Handicap. He was just another reason for Zito to be toasting away Saturday night in Louisville.

STRIKING GOLD: When Meadow Star lost in the Wood Memorial, jockey Chris Antley was able to accept the mount on Strike The Gold. C6

DERBY CHART: C6