THOROUGHBRED RACING : Trainer Bohannan Not Bluffing With Prairie Bayou in Preakness

A year ago, trainer Tom Bohannan brought Pine Bluff to Pimlico after a dismal run in the Kentucky Derby, and the colt redeemed himself by winning the Preakness. Three weeks after that, Pine Bluff ran third in the Belmont Stakes, totaled the most points for high finishes in the Triple Crown races and earned a bonus of $1 million.

This time, Bohannan is at Pimlico on a similar mission. The owners as well as the initials of the horses are even the same--Pine Bluff and this year’s Bohannan 3-year-old, Prairie Bayou, both race for John Ed Anthony’s Loblolly Stable.

The big difference is that, while Lil E. Tee won the Derby and beat sixth-place Pine Bluff by eight lengths, Prairie Bayou comes to town off a solid second-place finish at Churchill Downs, only 2 1/2 lengths behind Sea Hero.

“I’m not any more confident about Prairie Bayou’s chance in the Preakness than I was about Pine Bluff,” Bohannan said at the barn Wednesday. “With Pine Bluff, I threw out the Derby, because he just didn’t like the track in Kentucky. Prairie Bayou could do better here than he did in the Derby if he gets a better trip.”

Unlike Pine Bluff, who ran closer to the pace, Prairie Bayou has a late-running style that seldom serves a horse well in the Derby. Two weeks ago, he and jockey Mike Smith were in 16th place, 14 lengths behind the leader, early in the race. While Smith had to go around horses heading for home, Jerry Bailey, astride Sea Hero, was able to knife through on the inside, and Bohannan said the contrasting trips made all the difference.

Sea Hero, whose running style actually resembles Pine Bluff’s, is also running in the Preakness, trying to become the first Triple Crown winner since Affirmed in 1978. Rather than tell Smith to shadow Sea Hero on Saturday and lurk closer to the lead, Bohannan probably will give him the same instructions he had before the Derby, with a footnote about saving ground if it’s possible.

“It would be a disastrous decision if I told Mike to send our horse to the lead just to save ground on the turns,” Bohannan said.

The 1 3/16-mile Preakness, 110 yards shorter than the Derby, is the rubber match between Sea Hero and Prairie Bayou. In the Blue Grass at Keeneland, three weeks before the Derby, Prairie Bayou found room between horses and scored his fourth consecutive victory. Sea Hero was fourth, beaten by less than three lengths after a troublesome trip.

“We’ve got nothing to change about Prairie Bayou,” Bohannan said. “He’s run over all kinds of different tracks and he’s been an honest horse, running first or second every time.”

This is no exaggeration. After a seventh-place finish in his first race, last October, Prairie Bayou has six victories and three seconds in nine starts, earning close to $1 million. He gained some weight earlier this year, part of the maturing process, and he doesn’t appear to have sacrificed any flesh in the grind that the Derby and its prep races can be.

Thwarted when he tried to become the first gelding to win the Derby since Clyde Van Dusen in 1929, Prairie Bayou could become the first castrated horse to win the Preakness since Holiday in 1914. His 10 starts have come over a seven-month span, but Bohannan doesn’t anticipate the horse flattening out Saturday because of his nonstop schedule.

“I think his races have been spaced out properly,” the trainer said. “I wonder if a filly or a headstrong colt would have been able to handle that schedule, but it’s been no problem for this laid-back gelding.”

How laid back? Well, a couple of days before the Derby, Prairie Bayou was grazing in front of his barn at Churchill Downs, in a grassy area that is separated from a busy neighborhood street by a chain-link fence.

“A wrecker came barreling down the street, carrying a $200 car,” Bohannan said. “Every other horse but mine was affected by the noise and looked up kind of startled. All my horse did was look up for a second. Then he dropped his head and went about his business.”

The Preakness is a rematch of the first four Derby finishers--Sea Hero, Prairie Bayou, Wild Gale and Personal Hope--plus seven others. Three Derby retreads--Union City, Rockamundo and El Bakan--will have to improve dramatically to have a chance Saturday. The others--Cherokee Run, Woods of Windsor, Koluctoo Jimmy Al and Too Wild--are making quantum jumps in company.

“I’m not afraid of anybody in there,” Bohannan said. “I guess everybody has as much business being in this race as we do. Sea Hero’s won the Derby, but we’ve also beaten him and we hope to do it again.”

Tom Bohannan is not a man of overstatement. He didn’t come here last year with any wild forecasts about Pine Bluff making a turnabout, and he’s playing the same close-to-the-vest hand with Prairie Bayou. The trainer is as laid back as his horse.

Horse Racing Notes

What do bettors do with Rockamundo, winner of the Arkansas Derby at 108-1, then 17th in the Kentucky Derby? He underwent throat surgery after the Derby and Wednesday’s workout--a half-mile in a quick 46 4/5 seconds--indicates that (a) Pimlico’s track is playing fast, and (b) Rockamundo appears to have recovered from the operation. “His palate was blocking his epiglottis,” trainer Ben Glass said. “They cut the muscles, muscles that a horse doesn’t even need, to correct the problem.” . . . Mail from animal-rights advocates has not changed Glass’ opinion that he’s doing the right thing by running Rockamundo. “This horse is only a 3-year-old once, and they only run the Preakness once a year,” the trainer said. “The way he worked today, the surgery couldn’t have taken that much out of him. The way he usually works, a time of 51-and-change would be good for him. Usually we have to work him in company (with another horse) to get him going.” . . . Calvin Borel, who rode Rockamundo for the first time in the Arkansas Derby, broke a kneecap in a spill at Louisiana Downs last Friday, and he will be replaced in the Preakness by Edgar Prado, who is Pimlico’s leading jockey by a wide margin, with a 26% winning rate. In his only Preakness appearance, Prado finished 12th astride My Luck Runs North last year. . . . The first of five geldings to win the Preakness was Shirley, in the fourth running of the race in 1876.