His Old Kentucky Home : Arazi Won Easily at Churchill Downs in Breeders’ Cup, but Track Will Be More Crowded for the Derby

After Arazi had galloped around Churchill Downs, the track where he will run Saturday in the Kentucky Derby, trainer Francois Boutin lit a cigar.

When Red Auerbach coached the Boston Celtics, lighting a cigar on the bench was a signal that the game had been won.

Boutin’s cigar Wednesday signified only that he enjoys a morning smoke. This 55-year-old French horseman, considered one of the world’s premier trainers, appears to hold all the cards for the 118th edition of the Derby, but he is playing them close to the vest. His American jockey, Pat Valenzuela, who will ride Arazi for the second time, is the one who is all but guaranteeing a victory.

Arazi set the American thoroughbred world on its ear six months ago, coming to Churchill Downs from France, where all his races were on grass and on courses with right-hand turns. The colt’s five-length victory in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile was so easy that Valenzuela pulled him up about 70 yards from the finish.

In the Derby, Arazi’s chore is more difficult. It is so demanding that if he beats his 18 rivals, they can close the polls for the horse-of-the-year voting for 1992 and prepare Arazi’s plaque for the Racing Hall of Fame in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.

The week after the Breeders’ Cup, Arazi underwent arthroscopic surgery on both knees for bone chips. And now he is at the scene of his last American conquest, being asked to run 1 1/4 miles, which is 3/16ths of a mile farther than the Breeders’ Cup race, after having only one prep race as a 3-year-old.

Boutin concedes that the prep race, at a mile in France on April 7, was not much of a barometer. “The outcome did not mean a lot,” the silver-haired trainer said through an interpreter Wednesday. “My horse was not at top form, and his opponents were only average. But I hope he is at top form now.”

Valenzuela is more forceful. “Pressure? The pressure will be on the other guys,” the jockey said. “They have to beat us. I’ve never been more confident going into a race than I am for this one. I want to get lucky and have a clean trip, and I don’t think anybody can beat us.”

Only one horse, Bold Venture in 1936, has won a Derby with one prep race as a 3-year-old. Bold Venture raced eight times as a 2-year-old, the same as Arazi, who lost his first start and then won seven in a row.

Valenzuela, who won the Derby with Sunday Silence in 1989, has seen a tape of Arazi’s only prep race, but the first time he saw the horse in the flesh this year was Wednesday, when an exercise rider from Boutin’s stable handled him for the gallop. Valenzuela will hop on Arazi for a workout today.

“He’s stockier in the chest and neck,” Valenzuela said. “I liked the way he was traveling this morning. His action was good. He’s quicker and has a bigger kick than Sunday Silence. He can do a lot more things quicker than Sunday Silence could.”

When Arazi set foot on the track Wednesday, he wheeled around, a move similar to the one that caught Valenzuela by surprise on a morning before the Breeders’ Cup. Valenzuela was unseated but held onto the reins that day.

“He must have known I was here,” Valenzuela said Wednesday. “He must have said, ‘Here’s Pat, so that means it’s time to do my trick again.’ ”

Every horseman that sees Arazi comments about his lack of size. The Kentucky-bred chestnut son of Blushing Groom and Danseur Fabuleux probably weighs well under 1,000 pounds and will spot most of the opposition a couple of hundred pounds.

“It’s not size, it’s what inside that counts,” Lucien Lauren said after watching Arazi on Wednesday. “It’s the motor that’s important.”

Lauren trained Riva Ridge, the winner of the 1972 Derby, and the next year he won the Derby and swept the Triple Crown with Secretariat, a good-sized horse.

If Arazi wins Saturday, he might be the smallest Derby winner since Northern Dancer in 1964. Arazi is a grandson of Northern Dancer.

Arazi would not win any beauty contests. Muscular, sure, but pretty, no. The white blaze on his forehead starts out as a star, then runs down his face and juts to the right, running into his right nostril. Just like Secretariat, three of his legs have white stockings, but Arazi’s legs are apart wide in back, not a good sign for a horse. But some horses overcome that defect, particularly if they are sparingly raced. “You could roll a barrel through Alsab’s legs,” one trainer said Wednesday, yet that colt ran second to Shut Out in the 1942 Derby and is enshrined in the Hall of Fame.

Trainer Wayne Lukas, who will saddle Dance Floor and Al Sabin in this Derby, knows Larry Bramlage, the Lexington, Ky., veterinarian who removed Arazi’s knee chips.

“This kind of surgery might compromise a horse a couple of lengths,” Lukas said. “But this horse is good enough to lose that and still be better than most of us. I expect him to be 100% for this race.”

Boutin opposed having the surgery done, which is in character with most of the people behind Arazi. They have seldom agreed about anything.

Allen Paulson, the colt’s 50% owner, overruled Boutin and gave Bramlage the green light. Boutin also did not want to bring Arazi to the Breeders’ Cup, but Paulson again prevailed.

Paulson may not get his way, however, if Arazi wins the Derby, because the other 50% owner of the horse, Sheik Mohammed al Maktoum, would like to win the English Derby, and that would prevent Arazi from running in the Preakness on May 16 and the Belmont Stakes on June 6.

Those are the other Triple Crown races, and a sweep of the three is worth $5 million in purses and bonuses. The sheik, who paid a reported $9 million for his share of Arazi just before the Breeders’ Cup, would prefer running in the English Derby, scheduled for June 3, because while 11 horses have won the Triple Crown, no horse has even won the Kentucky and English Derbys.

Boutin is expected to break the tie if Paulson and the sheik cannot agree. “A decision (about returning to France) will be made right after the (Derby) race,” Boutin said Wednesday.

Arazi also has two jockeys, Valenzuela and the former American star, Steve Cauthen, who rides in England. Both will be campaigning for the horse to run where they ride, because the agreement between Paulson and Sheik Mohammed is for Valenzuela to get the assignments here and Cauthen to ride in races abroad. Valenzuela also has signed a year-long contract to ride all of Paulson’s horses in the United States.

Cauthen began his campaign for the English Derby when he was interviewed recently in England and said: “It is frightening to think what might come of Arazi if they keep him in the States for the Preakness and the Belmont. Francois (Boutin) has been very worried about training the horse over the hard tracks over there.”

Before leaving for England, Cauthen won the Triple Crown with Affirmed in 1978. Asked about Cauthen’s comments, Valenzuela smiled and said:

“Steve can’t have anything, can he? I’d like to think that Steve’s part of the Arazi team. We’re all part of the team. Francois Boutin is the quarterback and we’re his wide receivers.”

The early Arazi scenario is already beginning to smack of the unfortunate developments that came after Strike The Gold won last year’s Derby. Strike The Gold hasn’t won a race since, and the three-man partnership has broken up. Lawsuits have been filed and the colt is scheduled to be sold at public auction in New York next week.