Futurity Is Bright for Derby

Every parent wants his child to grow up to be President. Every coach wants to get his team in the Super Bowl. Every manager wants his ballclub in the World Series.

And every horseman--whether owner or trainer--wants his horse in the Kentucky Derby.

No matter how much the purists rail--it’s too early in the year, it’s too far, it’s too over-hyped--the reality remains that, to be considered Super Horse, you have to win at Louisville on the first Saturday in May. You can win all the Santa Margaritas, Withers Miles, Wood Memorials or Jockey Club Gold Cups you want, and your audience yawns. But tell them you won the Derby, and they sit up and listen or say, “Oh, yeah, I remember that year!”

Something like 50,000 horses a year are foaled--and about a dozen of them make the starting field for the Kentucky Derby.

It’s a crapshoot. It has been won by a lot of mediocre horses. But it has also been won by Citation, Secretariat, Count Fleet and Gallant Fox. Man o’ War never won it. But that was before it became the Holy Grail of American racing. And Big Red never got in it.

It’s hard getting a horse up to the Derby at his peak. Some horses handle a lot of hard campaigning--Determine would have raced you down to get the mail on a surface of old razor blades. So would Swaps. But other horses need pampering.

It used to be you could leave your Derby hopeful on a farm in Carolina or a barn on Long Island and bring him out for the Derby Trial or other bluegrass prep and he was ready for the Triple Crown. Tim Tam, Ponder, the great Calumet horses never ran as 2-year-olds. Neither did Proud Clarion, Lucky Debonair, Kauai King nor Majestic Prince.

You need to put more of a “bottom” in a horse today. You’re not going to van an unraced 3-year-old to Kentucky in the spring and, no matter how precocious he may be, expect him to handle the nuances of a race that can have all the charm of a cavalry charge without the sabers.

So the Hollywood Futurity, which was contested at Hollywood Park on Sunday, has, in its 11 years, become one of the most important races on the calendar.

There were only five horses in the field Sunday, but that’s a little like saying there were only four aces in your hand. All five of them could be at Kentucky. One of them could win there.

This race is only a decade old because it is a byproduct of fall racing--dates being awarded Hollypark in the shuffling of the thoroughbred scheduling.

In its first running, a colt named Gato Del Sol ran second. The following spring, he won the Kentucky Derby. The next year, a horse called Desert Wine ran second. The next spring, he was second in the Kentucky Derby.

Two years later, a horse called Stephan’s Odyssey won the Futurity. He ran second in the Kentucky Derby. A horse who finished fourth in that year’s Futurity, Tank’s Prospect, won the Preakness.

In 1985, Snow Chief won the Futurity. The horse that ran third was named Ferdinand. The next year, Ferdinand won the Kentucky Derby. And Snow Chief won the Preakness.

In 1986, Alysheba could do no better than second in the Futurity, but won the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness. In 1990, the gelding Best Pal won at Hollywood and was second in Kentucky.

Last year, A.P. Indy won the Futurity, followed up by winning the Santa Anita Derby in April, then won the Belmont Stakes after coming up injured before the Kentucky Derby.

The pedigree of the race was well established. Three Kentucky Derby winners, three Preakness winners and one Belmont winner have come out of its photo finishes.

There is a colt called Gilded Time at the barns in Santa Anita this year, awaiting winter campaigning. He is undefeated and was a clear winner in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile last fall. He is the winter book favorite for Kentucky.

One of the horses he beat in the Breeders’ Cup was River Special, a colt owned by John Mabee--who also owned Best Pal--and trained by a former economics major from Stanford, Bob Hess. But the horse most of the track fans thought would win Sunday was Allen Paulson’s undefeated clock-breaker, Stuka.

It wasn’t much of a race. River Special led every panel and romped by five lengths over Stuka.

Does he have a date with the winner’s circle at Churchill Downs?

Trainer Hess sighed.

“Well, that other horse (Gilded Time) might be a monster. But I might have trained my horse too fine for the Breeders’ Cup. Put more in him than he could handle.”

River Special plans only one prep race before the Santa Anita Derby, where he probably will meet up with Gilded Time again.

So, does that make the Kentucky Derby a two-horse race? Is Stuka out of it? Not at all. He finished second, after all. Two Kentucky Derby winners finished second in this race. One Kentucky Derby winner finished third.

The only sure thing is, one of the first two horses in next year’s Kentucky Derby will come out of the Hollywood Futurity. They always do. It has become America’s most important race for 2-year-olds.

Maybe the one thing you shouldn’t do is win it. Maybe the trainer, as he hoists the jock up in the saddle, should say, “Try to finish second. If you can’t do that, try third. Whatever you do, don’t win it.”