THOROUGHBRED RACING : Romero Brothers Don’t Want Others to Cool Dixieland Heat

Trainer Gerald Romero, 37, and his brother Randy, 35, are young as horsemen go, but their joint attack on this year’s Kentucky Derby has actually been in the works for a long time.

Gerald remembers when Randy was about 12, watching a telecast of a Kentucky Derby in Louisiana and saying, “I’m going to win a Kentucky Derby, too.”

Gerald turned to his younger brother and said: “You’re crazy, Randy.”

Randy Romero had a Shetland pony when he was 8, and was riding in quarter horse match races in dinky bayou towns such as Abbeville, Broussard and Iberville before he was 10.

“I only weighed about 69 pounds,” Romero said. “Trainers loved for me to ride their horses.”

Gerald Romero, about five inches taller than his 5-foot-3 brother and 50 pounds heavier, started training quarter horses at the bush tracks when he was a teen-ager, taking out his first thoroughbred license at 19. Lloyd Romero, their father, was the listed trainer for Rocket’s Magic, the legendary quarter horse who was ridden by Randy, but the brothers say that Gerald was the one who really did the training. In a name change for the movies, Rocket Magic’s story became “Casey’s Shadow,” with Walter Matthau playing the trainer.

Eighteen years after he started, Gerald Romero is at Keeneland, in lock step with brother Randy, as they aim for Saturday’s $500,000 Blue Grass Stakes with Dixieland Heat, an undefeated colt trying to scotch the idea that accomplished horses come out of the Fair Grounds only twice a century. Black Gold, winner of the Louisiana Derby in 1924, won the Kentucky Derby, but after that there was a drought that lasted until 1988, when Risen Star, a tough-luck third at Churchill Downs, won the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes and was voted divisional honors.

Risen Star was an all-Louisiana project, owned and trained by Louisianians, and ridden by a transplanted Louisianian, Eddie Delahoussaye. Dixieland Heat would also be toasted along New Orleans’ Bourbon Street if he won the Kentucky Derby on May 1, even though his owner, Leland Cook, is a Texan. Going into the Blue Grass, Dixieland Heat’s five consecutive victories have all been scored at the New Orleans Fair Grounds, and the Romero boys, along with their three brothers, grew up in Erath, La., a hamlet about 30 miles south of Lafayette.

“Sure, I’d like to train a Kentucky Derby winner,” Gerald Romero said. “But most of all, I’d like to win it for Randy, because I know what he’s gone through all his life.”

In a career punctuated by more than 3,800 victories, three Breeders’ Cup triumphs and seasonal riding titles at tracks in New York, Chicago, Florida, Louisiana and Kentucky, Randy Romero has broken bones represented on all pages of “Gray’s Anatomy.” In one race, in which Go For Wand broke down in the stretch and had to be destroyed, Romero suffered eight cracked ribs and a broken shoulder. About three months later, at Gulfstream Park, he was thrown again, suffering a concussion and breaking his left elbow and left collarbone.

“He’s seen death, and dealt with more pain than anyone I’ve ever known,” Gerald Romero said. “One time, he was unconscious for 30 days. People say he’s got a puffy face, and that’s because he’s got a metal plate in there, to keep it together. But what happened to him at Oaklawn (Park in Little Rock) in 1983 was as bad as all the broken bones combined.”

Ten years ago, Randy Romero flew to Arkansas to ride in a $100,000 stake. Before the race, he had a rubdown in the jockeys’ room and got into an old-fashioned reducing box that used light bulbs as conductors. The liniment from the rubdown may have touched the bulbs. There was an explosion and Romero turned into a torch. He suffered first- and second-degree burns over 60% of his body. He went from a hospital to burn centers in Louisiana and Texas, receiving last rites along the way.

Finally, after two massive skin grafts, doctors, trying to humor him, said that he could ride again in another year. Three and a half months later, Romero was at Louisiana Downs, getting a leg up on one of his brother’s horses.

Gerald Romero needed a lead-pipe cinch for his brother’s comeback, and found one in a horse that was 2-5 in a maiden race after having already run in a stake. Randy Romero won that race and 109 more that year, his horses earning $1.4 million in purses.

Randy Romero will probably train horses, too, some day, and Gerald, Randy’s wife Cricket and other family members have repeatedly asked him to quit before he kills himself.

“I’ve moped and been depressed while I was laid up,” Randy said. “But I still have this dream to win a Kentucky Derby.”

Explaining why his brother won’t retire from riding, Gerald said: “He loves this game. He sleeps very little, working at it and thinking about it, just like when we were kids. Randy would be up at 3:30 in the morning, hours before we had to be, because he couldn’t wait to work the horses before we took off for school. We didn’t have that much work to do, but he’d still be up at 3:30.”

In seven Derby rides, Randy has never come close. At a family dinner in New Orleans last Christmas, before Dixieland Heat had run a race, Gerald told his brother that he had a colt who might be special.

After Dixieland Heat won three in a row for jockey E.J. Perrodin, Randy dropped two promising 3-year-olds in Florida--Hidden Trick and Great Navigator--to ride his brother’s colt in the Risen Star Stakes on March 9. They won by 1 1/4 lengths, flirting with the track record for 1 1/16 miles. Two weeks later, Romero was aboard again. Dixieland Heat didn’t run as fast, but won by 2 1/2 lengths on a sloppy track in the Louisiana Derby.

“This is my best chance by far to win the Kentucky Derby,” Randy said. “And I really believe this: Blood’s thicker than water.”

Horse Racing Notes

Corby, one of two California invaders for the 1 1/8-mile Blue Grass, is the 2-1 favorite and the other, Lykatill Hil, is a surprising 5-1 fourth choice in a strong field. Here is the nine-horse lineup, starting at the rail, with jockeys and odds: Sea Hero, Jerry Bailey, 8-1; Lykatill Hil, Russell Baze, 5-1; Living Vicariously, Jose Santos, 12-1; Pawpaw Hank, Brent Bartram, 30-1; Dixieland Heat, Randy Romero, 7-2; Corby, Chris McCarron, 2-1; Wallenda, Herb McCauley, 20-1; Prairie Bayou, Mike Smith, 5-2; Halostrada, Shane Sellers, 20-1. There is a good chance for an off track, which moves up most of the contenders and might hurt Corby, who has never run in the mud.

Lil E. Tee, at 7-5; Best Pal, 2-1; and Jovial, 4-1, are the morning-line favorites for Saturday’s $750,000 Oaklawn Handicap in Arkansas. Best Pal last won in the race last year. He and Lil E. Tee are the co-high weights at 123 pounds, with Jovial next at 117. Others running are American Chance, Famed Devil, Conveyor, Sand Lizard, Pistols And Roses, Senor Tomas and Zeeruler.

Pat Valenzuela will ride Union City in the Kentucky Derby. . . . A Derby prospect, El Atroz, will be ridden by Martin Pedroza in the Lexington Stakes at Keeneland on April 18.