THOROUGHBRED RACING : Contract Isn’t Always a Guarantee of Roses at Time to Run for Them

The pitfalls of being a contract rider for a racing stable are unavoidable, and Pat Valenzuela, who has signed on as owner Allen Paulson’s first-call jockey for this year, cannot expect to escape them.

The best example of a jockey getting himself trapped because of a contract is Heliodoro Gustines, who in the 1970s was the regular rider for Martha Gerry’s Forego, while his first obligation was to John Hay (Jock) Whitney’s Greentree Stable. New Yorkers remember Gustines as the last of the contract riders back there.

Starting in late 1973, when Forego, as an overgrown 3-year-old, was just beginning to find enough room for those big bones in his body, the gelding and Gustines were inseparable. They were together for 31 consecutive races and Forego won 21 of them, never finishing worse than fourth and winning the horse-of-the-year elections in 1974 and ’75.

Forego would be horse of the year for 1976, too, but Gustines’ streak of riding him ended that summer. When the Nassau County Handicap came up in June, trainer Frank Whiteley was going to accept the hefty 132-pound assignment for Forego, but Gustines’ contract required him to ride the Greentree roan, Hatchet Man.

Whiteley turned Forego over to Jacinto Vasquez, who had been his rider on Ruffian, and they won the Nassau County easily, despite spotting the opposition between 17 and 24 pounds.

Gustines returned to ride--and win with--Forego in July, but in late August at Monmouth Park, he was unavailable to ride for Whiteley, and Forego, with Vasquez again, was beaten by Hatchet Man, of all horses, in a roughly run Haskell Handicap. Whiteley was going to give the permanent assignment on Forego to Vasquez, but when the horse suffered a foot injury in the final week at Saratoga, Forego became the race-day property of old buddy Bill Shoemaker, who went back with Whiteley to the days of Damascus a decade before.

Gustines could only wince on the sidelines when Shoemaker rode Forego, under weights of 135 and 137 pounds, to season-ending victories that clinched a third consecutive horse-of-the-year title. Shoemaker was also aboard in 1977 when Forego, as a 7-year-old, won the last three stakes races of his career.

Johnny Longden was a contract rider for most of the early part of his 40-year career, first with the Wheatley Stable and then for a longer time with John D. Hertz. “I got a monthly salary, plus 10% of the purses,” Longden said this week. “Of course, the salary was nothing like Valenzuela’s getting.”

In 1942, Longden was riding two gifted 2-year-olds, Count Fleet and Blue Swords. Because Count Fleet belonged to Hertz, the Blue Swords people had switched to Johnny Adams as their jockey by the time of the 1943 Kentucky Derby.

“I got lucky,” Longden said, “because Count Fleet was a super horse. He was the best horse I ever rode, and one of the best horses I’ve ever seen. Blue Swords never could beat us.”

No one beat Count Fleet as a 3-year-old. He won all six of his starts, including a sweep of the Triple Crown races. Blue Swords finished second, three lengths back, in the Kentucky Derby and was second again in the Preakness, outclassed that time by eight lengths.

“When I was with Hertz (under contract), he didn’t have a lot of horses,” Longden said. “That let me take second calls for a lot of important owners, people like E.R. Bradley and Harry Guggenheim.”

In the spring of 1941, Wendell Eads was the contract rider for powerful Calumet Farm. He was paid $1,000 a month and 5% of whatever his horses won. Jockeys were not unlike ballplayers then. Eads remembers signing a contract as an apprentice and then having the balance of that agreement bought by Calumet when he became a journeyman.

Calumet had Whirlaway then. In late April, the Kentucky Derby favorite and Eads finished second in the Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland. Then, in the Derby Trial, which was run four days before the Kentucky Derby, Whirlaway was second again, after trying to bolt to the outside fence.

Eads may have had a contract, but for the Derby, trainer Ben Jones called on Eddie Arcaro, whose contract holder, Greentree, didn’t have a horse in the race. Arcaro, the national leader in purses the year before, had scored his first of five Derby victories in 1938, with Lawrin, and he and Whirlaway, wearing that odd-looking one-eyed blinker, went on to win the Derby by eighth lengths and sweep the Triple Crown.

“I wasn’t strong enough to ride Whirlaway,” said Eads, no bitterness showing in his voice as he talked on the phone from Oakland, Ill. “I only weighed 100 pounds, and he was too much horse for me. I rode him about 22 times and won 13 races on him before Arcaro got him.”

Based on reports from abroad, Pat Valenzuela’s contract may have holes in it, just as Eads’ did in the case of Whirlaway. Sheik Mohammed al Maktoum, who is partners with Paulson in Arazi, the favorite for this year’s Kentucky Derby, has no contract with Valenzuela and is said to be leaning toward Steve Cauthen, the transplanted American, as the rider for the colt’s first Derby prep, which probably will be in France.

When Valenzuela and Paulson made their deal, they both indicated that Valenzuela would be riding Arazi, no matter where he ran.

Asked about the situation the other day, Paulson said: “If Cauthen rode (in France), it would still be in my (racing) colors. It will be up to (trainer Francois) Boutin. But if the horse is in the Derby, Pat will ride. It’s my call, but I don’t want to make any waves.”

Should Valenzuela become a contract rider without a horse, it wouldn’t be the first time.

Horse Racing Notes

Only four horses will challenge Twilight Agenda, the 125-pound high weight, in Saturday’s $150,000 San Pasqual Handicap at Santa Anita. Others running in the 1 1/16-mile race are Algenib, 119 pounds; Answer Do, 118; Ibero, 116; and King Drone, 111. Twilight Agenda could give trainer Wayne Lukas his fourth consecutive victory in the stake, the others being On the Line, Criminal Type and Farma Way. Chris McCarron has been named to ride Twilight Agenda and Jose Santos will fly in from the East to ride Algenib.

Trainer Michael Whittingham saddled successive longshot winners at Santa Anita Thursday, including Sunset Partner at 16-1 in the feature race. Whittingham’s other winner was She’s a V.P. at 8-1.