THOROUGHBRED RACING : Down Yonder in New Orleans, a Bigger Lil E. Tee Gets Ready

Two Kentucky Derby winners can be found at the Fair Grounds, the New Orleans track that opened in 1872, three years before the first Derby was run.

One of them, Black Gold, won the Derby in 1924 and was destroyed after breaking a leg in a race at the Fair Grounds in 1928. He was buried in the track’s infield, next to Pan Zareta, the mare who won 76 races in 1912-1917.

Above ground at the Fair Grounds is Lil E. Tee, the winner of last year’s Derby, but a colt who still figures to be buried by the Eclipse Awards voters when their tabulation is announced on Feb. 1. Lil E. Tee won’t come close to A.P. Indy, who besides being voted champion 3-year-old colt is the favorite for the horse-of-the-year title that will be announced on Feb. 5.

Lil E. Tee ran only one more race after the Derby, finishing fifth in the Preakness at Pimlico in mid-May. His chances in the middle Triple Crown race were compromised by pulmonary bleeding, and then on June 6 he underwent arthroscopic surgery for bone chips in his front ankles. That was the same day that A.P. Indy, who missed the Derby and the Preakness because of a cracked hoof, won the Belmont Stakes.

Not since Alysheba, who won the Derby in 1987 and was voted horse of the year in 1988, has a Derby winner returned to win a championship as a 4-year-old. Between Alysheba and Lil E. Tee, the four Derby winners--Winning Colors, Sunday Silence, Unbridled and Strike The Gold--won only seven of 29 starts as 4-year-olds. From that quartet, the only multiple stakes winner as a 4-year-old was Strike The Gold, and he had to race 13 times last year to score twice.

So against this historical reality, what is Lil E. Tee doing in New Orleans?

“He went to a farm in Kentucky after the surgery,” trainer Lynn Whiting said from New Orleans. “Then I got him back about the middle of October. He’s had five or six good workouts down here. But we’re not going to run him here. Home for me is Churchill Downs, but I’ve been bringing my horses here in the winter for the last five years, because the track surface is so good.”

Whiting will be sending his horses to Oaklawn Park in Arkansas soon. The early objective for Lil E. Tee is the $750,000 Oaklawn Handicap on April 10. Whiting would like to run the colt at least twice at Oaklawn before then.

Last April, Oaklawn Park was where Lil E. Tee ran his final Derby prep, losing by a neck to Pine Bluff in the Arkansas Derby. Lil E. Tee lost about 30 pounds in that race, which was a concern for the fidgety Whiting during the two weeks before the Kentucky Derby.

Belying his name, Lil E. Tee was never a small horse. Actually, his first name comes from the initials of his breeder, Lawrence I. Littman. He gave the Kentucky Derby its first Pennsylvania-bred winner, although Lil E. Tee ran in Louisville for Cal Partee, the 83-year-old Arkansas industrialist who bought the horse at a 2-year-old auction for $200,000 after Lil E. Tee had finished second in his only race.

“He hasn’t grown in height, but he’s filled out his frame,” Whiting said this week. “I weighed him at Pimlico, before he ran in the Preakness, and he was 1,095 pounds. My guess is that he’s about 1,200 now.”

Lil E. Tee began gaining weight hours after his Derby victory. Whiting said the colt gobbled up 11 quarts of oats the night of the race.

Pine Bluff, winner of the Preakness and third in the Belmont, was retired because of a leg injury.

“Retiring Lil E. Tee was never a major consideration,” Whiting said. “The problems he’s had have always been some things that we felt we could take care of.”

The productive part of the 1992 season virtually ended for Whiting with Lil E. Tee’s surgery. His barn didn’t win another stakes race all year. “When he left, there was a big void,” Whiting said.

At the Fair Grounds, Whiting has started only a few horses and won one race. If there is to be an encore at this year’s Derby on May 1, it might come from a colt who finished second the first time he raced.

“His name is Brazos River,” Whiting said. “That’s a big river in Texas. Mr. Partee owns him. He’s by Darn That Alarm (sire of Pistols and Roses, the Blue Grass Stakes winner who was 16th in last year’s Derby). This colt didn’t have his head on about running until lately. Now he acts like his head’s in the game. He looks like the type that’ll like a distance of ground.”

The chances are remote that Whiting, 53, would win another Derby at the track where he has trained horses out of the same barn for 19 years.

After a pitcher throws a no-hitter, there’s usually talk about matching Johnny Vander Meer’s two in a row, pitched in 1938. In racing, a trainer just running a horse in the Derby in two consecutive years is an accomplishment. The four trainers to win two in a row have been the father-son Jones boys, Ben and Jimmy; H.J. (Derby Dick) Thompson and Lucien Laurin, who did it last with Riva Ridge and Secretariat in 1972-73.

Horse Racing Notes

The Wicked North and Bertrando, second- and third-place finishers behind Star Of The Crop in the Malibu Stakes on opening day at Santa Anita, head the 10-horse field in Saturday’s $200,000 San Fernando Stakes. The Malibu and the San Fernando are the first two legs of the Strub series for 4-year-olds, which ends with the $500,000 Charles H. Strub Stakes on Feb. 7. Star Of The Crop, who has never run farther than seven furlongs, is skipping the 1 1/8-mile San Fernando. The entry of Bertrando and Disposal, favored in the Malibu, will be back Saturday, both running on an off track for the first time. Major Impact drew the rail, and outside him come Al Sabin, Lottery Winner, Never Round, Bertrando, Disposal, The Wicked North, Star Recruit, Daros and Siberian Summer.

Magical Maiden’s X-rays were negative, but she has a pulled muscle and will miss the La Canada on Jan. 30. . . . Yukio Okabe, one of Japan’s top jockeys, rode Speeding Moment to a third-place finish in the second race Thursday and will be taking mounts at Santa Anita for the next few weeks. Okabe, 45, has won the Japan Cup twice, with Symboli Rudolf in 1985 and Tokai Teio last year. In 1986, Okabe accompanied Symboli Rudolf to Santa Anita, and they finished next to last in the San Luis Rey Stakes, as the 5-year-old suffered career-ending injuries.

El Atroz, the 43-1 shot who won the California Breeders’ Champion Stakes at Santa Anita, is back in trainer Jose Silva’s care at Bay Meadows, being prepared for the $200,000 El Camino Real Derby there a week from Saturday. . . . Changed Tune’s victory in an allowance at Santa Anita on Thursday was her first since being claimed for $80,000 out of a race at Del Mar in August. The 4-year-old filly had run second twice and finished sixth as she moved into stakes company last fall. With five scratches on the muddy track, Changed Tune had to beat only three horses, running on the main track for the first time since she was fifth in the Hollywood Oaks last July.