Something to Claim but Nothing to Prove for Bud Delp

When he saddled a cheap horse named Keatin’ for Tuesday’s last race at Laurel, Bud Delp might have reflected that his life has come full circle. In the 1960s he had been the dominant trainer at this track; his methods had been so innovative and influential that he left a lasting impression on Maryland racing.

Now he is back, because he wants to put down roots for the sake of his family, and he will again be operating a stable here year-round.

In the interim, of course, Delp had achieved national fame as the trainer of Spectacular Bid. Irrepressibly voluble and confident, he had proclaimed early in the gray colt’s career that this might be “the greatest horse who ever looked through a bridle.” He proceeded to make good on his boast; at the very least, Bid was the best thoroughbred to race in America during the 1980s.

When Spectacular Bid retired to stud, Delp looked forward to a much more relaxed professional life. He would train a smaller, high-quality stable -- probably dominated by the offspring of Spectacular Bid. He would operate in the most pleasant environments.

Maryland racing before Delp might be likened to a friendly poker game, one that is competitive but hardly cutthroat.

Then came a new player, Grover G. Delp. He assembled a large stable, claimed horses aggressively and loved to drop horses in class sharply. He’d take a sharp $10,000 animal, enter him for $5,000 and dare everybody else to guess whether the horse was a lead-pipe cinch or a broken-down cripple. Only Delp knew for sure.

Soon other trainers began developing large stables and playing the game in the same fashion that Delp did -- King Leatherbury, John Tammaro, Dick Dutrow. “I patterned myself after him,” Leatherbury acknowledged. “He was the king.” The business of training horses became tougher and more competitive in Maryland than at any racing circuit in the country. “It was dog eat dog,” Delp said.

Delp trained his share of stakes-quality horses in those days, but he certainly never expected to train a champion. “I remember watching Affirmed and Alydar,” he said, “and thinking to myself, ‘I wonder what it would be like to have a horse like that?’ ... “

But when he recognized during the colt’s 2-year-old season in 1978 how good Spectacular Bid was, Delp proceeded to manage him with consummate skill and confidence through three campaigns. Few great thoroughbreds have ever completed a lengthy career with so few blemishes on their records as Bid did: He won 26 of 30 starts, including a perfect nine-for-nine season as a 4 year old, and earned an Eclipse Award each year he ran.

When he retired, though, Delp conceded, “It was a relief. I’d been in a pressure cooker for three years -- but I’d put myself in there too. I was always big-mouth Bud Delp, saying the horse couldn’t lose.”

As he had planned, Delp began to train a smaller, more-select operation, and he has enjoyed some major successes -- he won the 1990 Woodward Handicap at Belmont with Dispersal; he won last weekend’s $500,000 Hawthorne Gold Cup with Sunny Sunrise. But he had fewer stakes horses than he might have expected, because he had been counting heavily on the offspring of Spectacular Bid.

But to the surprise of just about every expert in the breeding industry, Bid has flopped as a sire. “That was the biggest disappointment in my career as a trainer,” Delp said. “We went through six years of getting Bid’s offspring and thinking that we were going to get a whole lot of stakes horses. I finally had to say to Tom and Harry (Meyerhoff, who owned him), ‘I’ve had it with the Bids.’ ”

Delp didn’t have a steady stream of top-class horses, nor did he have an ideal place to train year-round. He loves the midsummer racing at Arlington, but the other tracks on the Chicago circuit have inferior racing strips and inferior purses. He liked the winter racing at the Fair Grounds in New Orleans, but the economy of the city dragged down the economy of the track and the purses weren’t good enough. With two children in grade school, Delp wanted to find a place to establish a permanent home. So he and his family have settled in Ellicott City, Md., and Delp is back on the Maryland racing circuit to stay.

What kind of operation will he run? Will the erstwhile wheeler-dealer with claiming horses get back into the claiming game?

“I’m thinking about it,” Delp said. “I wouldn’t want to have 20 owners, but I’ve talked with a few relatives and friends about setting up a separate account (for claiming horses) and seeing if we could run it up.”

But wouldn’t it feel like a comedown to train $10,000 claimers after managing the best horse in the world?

“Not at all,” Delp said. “If I came to the barn in the morning and saw a few horses like Sunny Sunrise and Dispersal, the others would look good too. And, you know, I haven’t claimed horses in so long that I miss it. It does mean you’ve got to work a lot harder. ... “

As Delp talked about the claiming business, there was a note of the same kind of unabashed enthusiasm that he always displayed in the glory days of 1978-80. He will never have another one like Spectacular Bid, but he can still get kicks and satisfaction just from playing the game.