THOROUGHBRED RACING : Trainers Beware: Sometimes Horses Get Teeth Into Work

The fastest horse in the Preakness won’t be determined until Saturday, but two of the 3-year-olds in the race have already staked a claim to being the hungriest.

Technology, a horse who has been battling foot problems for weeks, tried to bite his trainer, Sonny Hine, on Thursday at Pimlico. A little earlier, Shelley Riley, the owner-trainer of Casual Lies, suffered a badly bruised lower back when Conte Di Savoya, another Preakness entrant, nipped her as she was walking her colt, Casual Lies, along the shed row.

“I won’t be able to wear a bikini for a while,” Riley said.

Conte Di Savoya, who ran fourth in the Kentucky Derby, two positions behind Casual Lies, is a big, temperamental rogue whose reputation preceded him. On Wednesday, after working half a mile, Conte Di Savoya unseated his rider, Walter Guerra, and kicked him in the ribs. Guerra got thrown when the horse went after his exercise pony.

“He’s a tough horse when he runs, but in the mornings you’ve got to let him do what he wants to do,” said LeRoy Jolley, Conte Di Savoya’s keeper. “He used to be worse before we learned to take him out with a pony. When he was a 2-year-old, he’d wheel around on the track. But as long as he keeps running the way he has, we won’t change much.”

Charlsie Cantey, the ABC commentator and a close friend of Jolley’s, witnessed Conte Di Savoya’s attack on Riley.

“He was way in the back of his stall, so you wouldn’t suspect that he might be doing anything,” Cantey said. “When Shelley came by with her horse, he made a big move to get her. With this horse, there probably should have been a shield in front of his stall.”

Before the Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland on April 11, Conte Di Savoya had won only one of nine starts, and at best looked like a horse who had a better future running 1 1/2 miles on grass.

Then in the Blue Grass, at 73-1, the longest price on the board, Conte Di Savoya made a brash run along the rail and finished second, coming within a neck of beating Pistols And Roses.

In the Derby, at 21-1, Conte Di Savoya was running ninth early, before Shane Sellers again moved him up on the inside, and they took fourth money, finishing more than six lengths behind Lil E. Tee.

Sellers might have been saving ground at Churchill Downs, but for that track on that day, it was the wrong place to be.

“The inside was dead,” Sellers said after the race.

Meantime, Pat Day, riding Lil E. Tee in the center of the track, was in the one place where there was at least some bounce to the cushion. Day, who has won 15 seasonal riding titles at Churchill Downs, must have known that.

“Pat knew the path in the Derby, and he didn’t get off it,” Hine said.

The winner of two Derbies, with Foolish Pleasure in 1975 and Genuine Risk, the filly, in 1980, Jolley is better known for his near misses in the Preakness. After six races, Conte Di Savoya’s trainer has no victories and three seconds--with Ridan in 1962, Foolish Pleasure in 1975 and Genuine Risk.

Ridan and Genuine Risk were involved in two of the most controversial Preaknesses ever run. Greek Money won by a nose over Ridan, then a foul claim by the fiery Manny Ycaza, Ridan’s jockey, was disallowed by the stewards.

In 1980, Genuine Risk, the first filly to win the Derby in 65 years, appeared to be making the same sweeping move that worked on the far turn at Churchill Downs when Angel Cordero, aboard Codex, carried her into the center of the track, intimidated her with his whip at the top of the stretch and rode his colt to a 4 3/4-length victory.

Jacinto Vasquez, riding Genuine Risk, lodged a foul claim against Cordero but it was not allowed. Codex’s victory was finally made official two weeks later, when a three-day hearing by the state racing board supported the stewards.

Conte Di Savoya would appear to be Jolley’s most unlikely Preakness contender. He still has only a maiden victory, at Hialeah last December, in 11 starts.

A son of Sovereign Dancer, out of Funistrada, a Fappiano mare, he is still owned by his breeder, Jaime Carrion, because he was returned after having been sold for $380,000 to Sheik Hamdan at a Keeneland yearling auction.

A post-sale X-ray showed a bone chip in Conte Di Savoya’s left hind ankle, and Carrion took the horse back and gave the sheik a refund.

Now Conte Di Savoya is running at 12-1 in the Preakness, which means the Pimlico oddsmaker gives him an outside chance. He probably has a better chance of biting an opponent--a horse or a jockey--in Saturday’s post parade.

Horse Racing Notes

Of the nine top-weighted horses in the Experimental Handicap, a theoretical listing of last year’s leading 2-year-olds, only two--Pine Bluff and Dance Floor--are running in the Preakness. By the wayside are Arazi, Bertrando, A.P. Indy, Snappy Landing, Tri To Watch, Pistols And Roses and Zurich.

Preakness trainers continue to reflect on Arazi’s eighth-place finish as the 9-10 favorite in the Kentucky Derby. “He looked all right coming off the plane (from France),” Sonny Hine said. “But as the week went on, he got worse and worse. He got so depressed. By race day, he looked like death warmed over.” . . . Added Tom Bohannan, Pine Bluff’s trainer: “This was my first Derby, so I backed off and didn’t always say what I was really thinking. But to myself I was saying that what they were trying to do (win the Derby after a single one-mile prep race) was virtually impossible.”

As of late Thursday, My Luck Runs North and Fortune’s Gone had still not arrived at Pimlico. They were due in Thursday night by van from Lexington, Ky. . . . Speakerphone is also not on the grounds. He trains at Laurel Race Course, about 25 miles from Pimlico.