THOROUGHBRED RACING : Smith Could Use Extra Saddle

If heavily favored Dalhart wins today’s $500,000 Arkansas Derby, Mike Smith will have to make a quick decision that any jockey would like to have, but one that any rider would have trouble making.

A victory by Dalhart at Oaklawn Park would make him and owner John Ed Anthony’s other standout 3-year-old, Prairie Bayou, the co-favorites in the Kentucky Derby on May 1. Smith is a versatile rider, but he can still ride only one of them.

“I hope Dalhart runs a big race and makes my decision harder,” said the New Mexico-born Smith, 27, who has dominated the New York colony since leaving the Midwest at the end of 1989. Last year, Smith ranked sixth nationally in both purses ($10.8 million) and victories (339). This year, through last Sunday, Smith’s purse total was $2.4 million, fifth in the national standings.

Smith’s ties with Anthony’s Loblolly Stable go back to 1984, when the jockey, then 18, rode Pine Circle in the Kentucky Derby and Preakness. Vanlandingham was Anthony’s top 3-year-old that year, and with Pat Day riding him, Smith got the call on the longshot Pine Circle, who was sixth in the Derby and fifth in the Preakness. Vanlandingham was injured in the Derby, and Day replaced Smith for the Belmont Stakes, with Pine Circle finishing second behind Swale.

Last year, when Dalhart was a 2-year-old, Day rode him in his first five races. In December, with Day riding in Japan, Smith replaced him and rode Dalhart to a 6 1/2-length victory at Aqueduct in the Nashua, which was the colt’s first stakes victory.

“That was the time when I suggested to Mr. Anthony that I ride his horses right through the Triple Crown,” Smith said.

The suggestion caught Anthony, a 54-year-old Arkansas timber tycoon, at the right time. Last year, after Jerry Bailey rode his Pine Bluff to victory in the Arkansas Derby, it seemed as if no jockey wanted Anthony’s colt. Bailey disappointed Anthony by choosing to ride Technology in the Kentucky Derby, and Craig Perret took over for a fifth-place finish. Perret’s horse was Alydeed for the Preakness, and they finished second as Pine Bluff, with Chris McCarron riding him for the first time, scored a three-quarter-length victory.

Anthony, excited by an extraordinary number of good 2-year-olds that he owned, liked Smith’s idea of becoming the Loblolly stable rider for the Triple Crown. Neither Smith nor Anthony could anticipate, however, what has happened. Two weeks before the Kentucky Derby, Loblolly has two prominent Derby horses and four backups. Dalhart, running here today as an entry with Over Jack Mountain, has two victories and a second with Smith aboard. Prairie Bayou’s victory last Saturday in the Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland gave him three victories and a second for Smith, with another stakes victory in the Jim Beam Stakes at Turfway Park coming with McCarron astride. Smith was busy the same day, riding Dalhart to his most recent victory, in the Rebel Handicap at Oaklawn.

Besides his pair at Oaklawn, Anthony is also running Marked Tree--with Day riding--and Ozan in today’s $500,000 Wood Memorial at Aqueduct, and on Sunday he will start Little Alum in the $125,000 Lexington Stakes at Keeneland.

The better the jockey, sometimes the harder the choice for the Kentucky Derby, and the race’s history is filled with riders who went the wrong way.

Bill Shoemaker, the trainer of Diazo, a California invader who will try to beat Dalhart in the Arkansas Derby, can identify with Smith’s dilemma. “Sometimes, you get just too many choices,” Shoemaker said. “Sometimes, you just don’t know which way to go. Look at what happened to me and Northern Dancer.”

In the winter of 1964, Shoemaker teamed with Northern Dancer to win the Flamingo at Hialeah and the Florida Derby at Gulfstream Park. In California, Shoemaker was also riding another Kentucky-bound 3-year-old, The Scoundrel, and two weeks before the Derby, at Keeneland, he got on Hill Rise, the Santa Anita Derby winner, for the first time.

Hill Rise won that Keeneland sprint, his seventh consecutive victory, and was going to be the Derby favorite. Shoemaker has told the story different ways, that he simply chose Hill Rise over Northern Dancer, and that Rex Ellsworth, who owned The Scoundrel, would release him to ride Hill Rise, but not Northern Dancer.

“When Shoe took the mount on Hill Rise at Keeneland, it was for the Derby, too,” Mesh Tenney, The Scoundrel’s trainer, said Friday from his home in Arizona. “He committed to Hill Rise.”

With Bill Hartack, Northern Dancer won the Derby in record time. Hill Rise and Shoemaker finished second, and The Scoundrel, ridden by Manny Ycaza, ran third.

Shoemaker, who retired from riding with four Derby winners, has been philosophical about not getting the chance to win with Northern Dancer. “Hill Rise only got beat a neck,” he said. “So we both broke the record, didn’t we?”

Horse Racing Notes

In one of her strongest performances, Paseana became the first double winner of the Apple Blossom Handicap, scoring a 3 1/2-length victory that moved the 6-year-old mare over the $2- million mark in purses. With no urging from jockey Chris McCarron, Paseana swept past the three leaders approaching the quarter pole and completed the 1 1/16 miles in 1:41 4/5.

Carrying 124 pounds, which was seven to 12 pounds more than her eight rivals, Paseana paid $2.80 to win as the favorite and earned $300,000 for owner Sidney Craig. Looie Capote, another California invader, finished second under Kent Desormeaux, beating the next horse, Luv Me Luv Me Not, by 4 1/2 lengths. Southern Truce finished seventh.

The track went from sloppy Thursday to fast Friday and today’s forecast is for an outside chance of thundershowers, with temperatures in the low 70s.