THOROUGHBRED RACING / BILL CHRISTINE : Wicked North Is Also Talk of the South

Even at Gulfstream Park, where the $500,000 Florida Derby will be run Saturday, they are rehashing the Santa Anita Handicap.

“They should have never taken that horse down,” said a jockey agent who saw the $1-million race on a telecast here last Saturday. “But I know what the stewards thought. They saw (Kent) Desormeaux, and he was riding three horses. He looked over five times to his left, where Myrakalu was trying to get through. The stewards out there have had their fill of Desormeaux. There was that not-riding-out-horses-to-the-wire business, and a few other things. He’s not the most popular guy in town. Another rider in his spot might have been able to get away with what he did.”

The Santa Anita stewards--Ingrid Fermin, Pete Pedersen and Tom Ward--maintain they are not prejudiced against Desormeaux. The rider of The Wicked North, who won by 1 1/2 lengths before his number was taken down for crowding Myrakalu at the top of the stretch, is appealing his five-day suspension.

Gary Jones, who trains Stuka, the Big ‘Cap winner by disqualification, thought that The Wicked North’s number wouldn’t be taken down, reasoning that in big races, stewards often permit more rodeo riding. The late Joe Manzi thought the same thing before his Fran’s Valentine was disqualified from first in the first Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies in 1984, but he was wrong, too.

“The first race on the card ought to be as important as the Santa Anita Handicap,” said Walter Blum, the Hall of Fame jockey who is a veteran steward at Gulfstream. “Any time people (jockeys) can get killed or there’s potential for the public to get ripped off, it doesn’t make any difference how big or little the race is.”

With Phil Hersh, The Wicked North’s owner, appealing the stewards’ decision to the California Horse Racing Board, there is special interest in the March 19 hearing, because it involves a judgment call, which is seldom overturned. It’s believed to have happened only once in California, and the only time that it happened in Florida, Blum was involved, sort of.

The race was Hialeah’s 1985 Flamingo Stakes, which was then a major prep for the Kentucky Derby. On paper, the Flamingo shaped up as a three-horse race that pitted Proud Truth, the Florida Derby winner, against Chief’s Crown, the champion 2-year-old of 1984, and Stephan’s Odyssey, winner of the ’84 Hollywood Futurity.

Proud Truth went off a slight 6-5 favorite, but Chief’s Crown led all the way to win by one length. Proud Truth was a neck faster than the late-running Stephan’s Odyssey to take second place.

With his jockey, Don MacBeth, whipping left-handed, Chief’s Crown drifted out slightly in the last sixteenth of a mile. To avoid clipping Chief’s Crown’s heels, Jorge Velasquez also went to the outside, where Stephan’s Odyssey and Eddie Maple were rallying.

Blum would have been the senior steward in the judges’ stand, but he was away, attending his mother’s funeral. His replacement, an administrative aide from the state racing board’s office, and the two other stewards disqualified Chief’s Crown to second and gave the victory to Proud Truth. MacBeth spoke briefly with Chief’s Crown’s trainer, Roger Laurin, showered quickly and got in his car, driving to New York nonstop except to refuel.

“I was that mad,” MacBeth said later.

Henryk deKwiatkowski, who owned Stephan’s Odyssey, thought that both of the horses that finished ahead of his colt should have been disqualified. In lock step with his trainer, Woody Stephens, deKwiatkowski crashed the stewards’ stand high above the track. Shouting was heard behind the closed door.

At least one veteran racing official referred to Chief’s Crown’s disqualification as a “comedy of errors.” Some observers suggested Blum’s presence would have made a difference. Asked about this the other day, Blum said: “They took enough heat at the time. I don’t want to add to it now.”

Florida racing rules, unlike California’s, do not allow for an appeal of a judgment call by stewards. But John Galbreath, who owned Proud Truth, gave the state permission to review the outcome. “He was very sportsmanlike,” Blum said. “He had absolutely nothing to gain.”

After the race, Galbreath had seemed sheepish about accepting victory, and although he never said so publicly, his actions supported the widely held belief that the stewards had blown the call.

The racing board, seeking to bring in three stewards from other states to referee the hearing, had difficulty finding a full panel.

“It’s not right to be judging the judges,” a steward from New York said. When Keene Dangerfield was called in Kentucky, he demurred: “I’d just as soon have a lobotomy.”

Finally, three veteran racing officials were hired. Nine days after the race, the review board overruled the stewards and made Chief’s Crown the winner. But deKwiatkowski was out of luck. Stephan’s Odyssey was left in third place.

“Even if Chief’s Crown deserved the win,” Walter Blum said this week, “what happened shouldn’t have happened. It’s not in racing’s best interests to have judgment calls second-guessed.”

Even before the protest hearing over Saturday’s Santa Anita Handicap, the race has already created more acrimony than racing needs. Besides Desormeaux versus the Santa Anita stewards, and Hersh versus the stewards, there was an ugly scene in the winner’s circle, where angry fans threw objects. A woman with the Allen Paulson party started crying after being struck on the forehead by a cigarette lighter. It was her first visit to a racetrack.

Paulson, the owner of Stuka, has not escaped the controversy. Hersh has accused him of being an ungracious winner, barging into the winner’s circle and insulting Hersh and his party.

“I can’t believe that I’m being accused of that,” Paulson said. “I was in my box and didn’t get down to the winner’s circle until real late. I don’t even know Mr. Hersh. I am not a rude person, and it’s horrible that he would say these things about me. I’ve been in the same position as Mr. Hersh and can understand his frustrations over losing a big race. But I think he owes me an apology.”