Croll’s Omission Is Smith’s Gain : Horse racing: Last year’s leading jockey took over on Holy Bull in September after trainer forgot to choose a rider for an allowance race.

The way jockeys sometimes end up on good horses can be more chance than design.

There’s no better example than Laffit Pincay when trainer Woody Stephens was winning five consecutive Belmont Stakes in the 1980s. Pincay rode the first three--Conquistador Cielo, Caveat and Swale--in the streak, even though Eddie Maple was Stephens’ regular stable rider at the time.

Maple was either injured or picking the wrong Stephens horses to ride. Craig Perret can use the latter reason for not having ridden Holy Bull as a 2-year-old, and now Mike Smith is riding the gray colt, who won Saturday’s Florida Derby to become the early Kentucky Derby favorite.

Perret passed on riding Holy Bull last year and Smith took over because Roberta Croll, wife of trainer Jimmy Croll, chose him to ride in an allowance race last September at Belmont Park.

“I forgot to name a jockey to ride the horse,” Croll said Sunday. “I was in Kentucky for a (horse) sale when I called home and my wife said that the track had called asking about the jockey. ‘They told me who was available, and I gave them Mike Smith,’ she told me. I said, ‘That’s fine. Mike’s a good jockey.’ ”

Good, to say the least. Two of Smith’s record 62 stakes winners last year were aboard Holy Bull, and the 29-year-old jockey finished with $14 million in purses, leading the nation and winning an Eclipse Award.

Perret was Croll’s first choice to ride Holy Bull. The jockey and the trainer both raced in New Jersey, and Perret has been the rider for some of Croll’s best horses. In 1987, Perret rode Bet Twice, who was second in both the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness before winning the Belmont Stakes. In 1990-91, years when Croll’s Housebuster won national sprinting titles, Perret was the colt’s regular rider.

A couple of weeks before Holy Bull’s allowance race at Belmont, Perret asked Croll what kind of a horse Holy Bull was. “He’s just average,” said the trainer, whose opinion was based on Holy Bull’s only start, a victory against maidens at Monmouth Park in mid-August.

Perret told Croll that he had a couple of other horses to ride in the same Belmont race that Holy Bull was going to run in. The one with the most potential was End Sweep.

Thanks to Roberta Croll, Mike Smith got the call and rode Holy Bull to a seven-length victory, the second victory in a five-race winning streak. End Sweep, with Perret, finished third, 10 lengths back.

Perret finished second Saturday with Ride The Rails, with Holy Bull winning the Florida Derby by 5 3/4 lengths, the second-largest margin in race history. Most of the 13 beaten horses at Gulfstream are not expected to try Holy Bull again when he makes his final pre-Kentucky Derby appearance in the Blue Grass at Keeneland on April 16. The Derby will be run three weeks later, with Smith seeking his first Derby winner.

Horse Racing Notes

Canaveral, unbeaten in two starts and unable to run in the Florida Derby because of an earnings rule, is entered against seven horses in an allowance race Wednesday at Gulfstream Park. . . . Fraise won the $300,000 Pan American Handicap by three-quarters of a length Sunday, giving Madeleine Paulson’s 6-year-old a victory in the Gulfstream stake for the second consecutive year. Summer Ensign finished second, a head in front of Fairy Garden, whose jockey, Jerry Bailey, claimed that Fraise and Mike Smith had crowded his mount at the top of the stretch. Fraise’s victory, his 10th in 27 starts, increased his earnings to $2.4 million. Carrying high weight of 124 pounds, which was between nine and 12 pounds more than any other horse in the field, Fraise ran 1 1/2 miles in 2:24 3/5.

As Indicated scored a 3 1/4-length victory over late-closing Federal Funds in the $100,000 Grey Lag Breeders’ Cup Handicap at Aqueduct. Under Robbie Davis and with the high weight of 127 pounds, As Indicated dueled with Primitive Hall to the middle of the stretch before drawing away. He covered the 1 1/8 miles in 1:46 1/5 over the fast inner dirt track. As Indicated returned $3.60, $3.20 and $2.40. Federal Funds, coupled with Jacksonport, paid $6.60 and $4.00, and Michelle Can Pass paid $3.20.