THOROUGHBRED RACING : Diazo Could Give Shoemaker His First Derby Trip as Trainer

When Bill Shoemaker rode Miss Musket to victory in 1974 in the Fantasy at Oaklawn Park, winning the 100th $100,000 stakes race of his career, the Central Arkansas track was unprepared for the milestone.

Before Shoemaker and Miss Musket reached the winner’s circle, Oaklawn President Charles Cella stood there, feeling naked because he had no special bric-a-brac to hand Shoemaker.

“Go into the office and get something,” Cella shouted to an aide.

The aide quickly returned and handed Cella a Tiffany lamp. If the award doesn’t fit, present it anyway. It might have been the only time that a jockey received a lamp for winning a race.

Shoemaker remembered the day, but had forgotten the lamp. “One of my ex-wives probably has it now,” he said the other day.

When Oaklawn runs the Arkansas Derby for the 57th time Saturday, Shoemaker hopes that Diazo, an undersized, lightly raced colt, will run well enough to light the way for another trip to the Kentucky Derby. A solid performance--and not necessarily a victory--by Diazo in the $500,000, 1 1/8-mile race could send Shoemaker to Churchill Downs on May 1 in a new capacity--as the trainer of a Derby horse. No one went to the Kentucky Derby more as a jockey. Between 1952 and 1988, Shoemaker rode in the race 26 times, winning with Swaps (1955), Tomy Lee (1959), Lucky Debonair (1965) and Ferdinand (1986). His victory aboard Ferdinand came when Shoemaker was 54, which still makes him the oldest jockey to win the Derby.

Johnny Longden is the only horseman to win the Derby as a jockey and a trainer. Fifty years ago, Longden rode Count Fleet to a Triple Crown sweep, and in 1969 he returned to saddle Majestic Prince for his victory.

Merely starting a horse in the Kentucky Derby would be an emotional rush for Shoemaker, who has been a quadriplegic and bound to a wheelchair since 1991, a year after he began training, as the result of injuries suffered in a one-car accident in San Dimas.

“Going back to Louisville would be nice, but we’re not there yet,” Shoemaker said Thursday. He has been here most of the week, supervising Diazo’s Arkansas Derby preparations under the immediate hand of Paddy Gallagher, the Shoemaker barn’s assistant trainer. Hot Springs, about 50 miles southeast of Little Rock and a town that bills itself as “the boyhood home of Bill Clinton,” is not handy by air, and to get here from his California training headquarters, Shoemaker had to make stops in Chicago and Memphis, Tenn.

The population of Hot Springs is about 36,000, and the crowd might be 24,000 more than that for the Arkansas Derby. Diazo is not the drawing card. That role belongs to Dalhart, another talented John Ed Anthony 3-year-old who will join his stablemate, Blue Grass Stakes winner Prairie Bayou, in the Kentucky Derby if he can master 10 opponents here.

Dalhart and another Anthony horse, Over Jack Mountain, will run as an entry Saturday and are listed as 6-5 favorites. Diazo is next on the morning line at 7-2, which seems more a sentimental nod to the Shoemaker connection than the colt’s record. After a second and a fifth in his only starts during a troubled 2-year-old season, Diazo has won both of his races this year in fast times at Santa Anita, but he has never run in a stake.

Here is the way the horses will break from the gate, starting on the inside: Kissin Kris, with Jose Santos riding, 12-1 odds; Ragtime Rebel, Luis Quinonez, 30-1; Aggressive Chief, Jerry Bailey, 15-1; Proudest Romeo, Fabio Arguello, 8-1; Dalhart, Mike Smith, 6-5; Over Jack Mountain, Willie Martinez, 6-5; Rockamundo, Calvin Borel, 30-1; Mi Cielo, Aaron Gryder, 12-1; Foxtrail, Chris McCarron, 5-1; Diazo, Kent Desormeaux, 7-2, and Gavel Gate, no jockey listed at entry time, 15-1. Dalhart, Kissin Kris, Ragtime Rebel and Foxtrail will carry 122 pounds apiece, the others 118.

Anthony has labeled the Kentucky Derby as a “street fight, not a tea party,” and other horsemen have borrowed from that expression.

“Diazo is a street fighter,” said Shoemaker, 61. “He’s a tough little horse who’s got a mind of his own. Last year he had (sore) shins, and he got sick on me a couple of times.”

Bred and owned by Allen Paulson, the son of Jade Hunter and Cruella is being supplemented into Saturday’s race at a cost of $25,000. In his last start, on March 21, Diazo came from slightly off the pace to win by 3 1/2 lengths, running 1 1/16 miles in 1:42 1/5.

“I don’t like to be pushing a horse into a race,” Shoemaker said. “But we ran out of time with this horse, and the race has just come up this way. If he runs good, I think he’s tough enough to come back in the Kentucky Derby in two weeks. If he finishes fourth or better, I’d say that he’d have a good chance to go on (to the Derby).”

Shoemaker senses that there is more pressure in training than riding a Derby horse. Paulson, for example, wants to win the Derby badly, and his No. 1 prospect, Corby, was a dull seventh in the Blue Grass.

“If a jock rides a horse in the Derby and doesn’t do well, he can get off the horse, say adios and hand him back to the trainer,” Shoemaker said. “The trainer’s still stuck with the horse and what he did.”

Thursday’s draw for post numbers was done at a breakfast of quail and scrambled eggs. Afterward, Shoemaker was asked the inevitable question about the best horse he ever rode among a record 8,833 winners.

“I probably rode more good horses than any other jockey,” Shoemaker said, not answering the question directly but listing several standouts: “Swaps, Spectacular Bid, Round Table, Gallant Man, Forego.”

Then he put the Arkansas Derby into perspective. “I’d like to have one of those right now,” he said.

Horse Racing Notes

Paseana meets Southern Truce, a consistent rival from California, and eight other challengers today in her effort to become the first two-time winner of Oaklawn Park’s Apple Blossom Handicap. Paseana was assigned 124 pounds, seven more than Southern Truce, who beat Paseana by a head in the Santa Margarita Handicap at Santa Anita on Feb. 28. Southern Truce has won seven of her last eight starts. . . . Storm Tower is the 5-2 favorite in Saturday’s Wood Memorial at Aqueduct. Marked Tree and Ozan, who race for John Ed Anthony’s Loblolly Farms, are coupled at 3-1. The field, in post-position order: Marked Tree, Duc d’Sligovil, As Indicated, Rohwer, Country Store, Tri For The Gold, Marco Bay, Storm Tower, Classi Envoy, Tossofthecoin, Takin’ Names and Ozan. They will all carry 126 pounds, the same weight as Kentucky Derby horses. . . . The field for Saturday’s San Simeon Handicap at Santa Anita includes Heart Of Joy, winner of last year’s race. Others entered are Roman Envoy, Prince Ferdinand, Wild Harmony, Spendaccione, Real West, Honor The Hero and Exemplary Leader. Roman Envoy is the high weight at 120 pounds.