Kentucky, at Long Last : After a Run of Bad Luck With Tasso Before the 1986 Derby, Southland’s Neil Drysdale Gets Another Chance With A.P. Indy

Trainer Neil Drysdale has won three Breeders’ Cup races--with Princess Rooney, Tasso and Prized--but he has never even run a horse in the Kentucky Derby.

In fact, only once has Drysdale come close to having a Derby horse. In 1986, Tasso, the champion 2-year-old colt from the year before, was on his way to Churchill Downs via the Wood Memorial at Aqueduct.

“A day or two before the race,” Drysdale said, “a metal pipe fell off a truck and spooked him. He grabbed a quarter (kicked himself in the leg). We still ran him in the Wood, but he didn’t run his race (finishing off the board), and that eliminated him from the Derby.”

Later that year, after his leg healed, Tasso was sidelined because of a breathing problem. The highlight of his abbreviated career after that was a second-place finish behind Ferdinand in the 1987 Hollywood Gold Cup. Ferdinand had won the Kentucky Derby that Tasso missed.

“Tasso was not a lucky horse as a 3-year-old,” Drysdale understated.

This year, Drysdale has A.P. Indy, who Saturday will get the native Englishman to his first Derby. A.P. Indy had surgery for an undescended testicle last fall and hasn’t lost a race since. He has been good enough to have reeled off five consecutive victories despite a low, head-down running style that makes his every step an adventure for Eddie Delahoussaye, the only jockey to ride him in a race.

The only unlucky thing about A.P. Indy might be that he has come along in the same year as Arazi, the colt who is expected to dominate Saturday.

“What kind of Derby would you like to see?” Drysdale was asked the other day.

“One without Arazi,” the trainer said.

Drysdale is well-equipped for his first Derby. His tack room at Churchill Downs is furnished with carpeting, a fax machine and a couple of French art prints. At the apartment that he and his wife, Inger, share near the track, Drysdale has a videotape machine that he has used to watch Arazi’s races several times.

“From what I’ve seen,” Drysdale said, “Arazi is an exceptional horse. He may have been forgotten, because he went back to France after he won the Breeders’ Cup last year, but I haven’t forgotten him. That race he ran last year was a scintillating performance.”

Since a fourth-place finish at Del Mar in his first start, A.P. Indy has beaten the best horses in California during the five-race winning streak. In his last start, on April 4, the $2.9-million Seattle Slew yearling won the Santa Anita Derby by 1 3/4 lengths.

“Arazi is a good horse,” Drysdale said, “but I’m still pleased with the way my horse is coming up to this race. He was a late developer, so we never considered the Breeders’ Cup last year, and now everything has fallen into place.”

Arazi is expected to come from far off the pace Saturday, much as he did in the Breeders’ Cup. In a 19-horse field such as Saturday’s, the Derby can become Times Square on New Year’s Eve, and many exceptional horses have been lost in the crowd. In 1974, Little Current, victimized by gridlock, finished fifth in the Derby that was won by Cannonade. Little Current went on to win the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes and was voted the country’s best 3-year-old colt. Cannonade didn’t win a major race after the Derby.

“My horse is versatile,” Drysdale said. “He will be where Delahoussaye chooses to put him.”

Few jockeys have better records in the Derby than Delahoussaye, who rode Princess Rooney and Prized to their Breeders’ Cup victories for Drysdale. Delahoussaye won the Derby with Gato Del Sol in 1982 and Sunny’s Halo in 1983, joining Isaac Murphy, Jimmie Winkfield and Ron Turcotte as the only jockeys to win in consecutive years. The year before Gato Del Sol’s victory, Delahoussaye rode the late-running longshot Woodchopper, and missed catching Pleasant Colony by three-quarters of a length at the wire.

Delahoussaye does not usually ride A.P. Indy for his workouts. After the Santa Anita Derby, he said: “It would really surprise me if this horse doesn’t like the track in Kentucky.”

With A.P. Indy, it’s hard to tell. Before the Santa Anita Derby, his workout times were no better than what claiming horses might do. It has been the same way here, slow practice times for such an accomplished game-day horse. He is the opposite of what the denizens of the backstretch call a “morning glory,” a horse who turns in dazzling workouts and then runs dull races.

Even while winning, however, A.P. Indy’s time in the Santa Anita Derby was 1:49 1/5 for 1 1/8 miles, the slowest performance by a winner of the stake since 1983. Some critics thought that he took a long time to catch Bertrando, who led the race until the sixteenth pole.

“The horse doesn’t have instant acceleration,” Drysdale said. “He usually comes between horses and makes his way steadily. If times worried me, I wouldn’t work my horses as slowly as I do.”

Much of Drysdale’s training style comes from having worked as an assistant for four years with Charlie Whittingham, the Hall of Fame trainer. Drysdale began assembling his own stable in 1974.

Whittingham eschewed the Derby, running in the race only twice before he won here in 1986 with Ferdinand, his first Derby starter in 26 years. Whittingham was 73, the oldest trainer to win a Derby, and in 1989 he broke his record, winning with Sunday Silence at age 76.

Drysdale is 44 and would appear to have many Derbies ahead. With A.P. Indy, he is breaking into the race in the best possible way.