BLUE GRASS STAKES : Trainer McAnally Hopes to Set Derby Cap With Valiant Nature

Trainer Ron McAnally has another set of souvenir caps from a major Kentucky Derby prep race. And this time McAnally’s 3-year-old, Valiant Nature, might even run in the race.

Nine days ago, a batch of Santa Anita Derby souvenirs were delivered to McAnally’s barn. Later that day, the trainer announced that Valiant Nature would run in today’s $500,000 Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland instead. McAnally brought the assortment of caps, shirts and badges here.

“They have the horse’s name on them, but not Santa Anita’s,” he joked. “I thought that maybe Ted Bassett (Keeneland’s board chairman) might give me a deal.”

One of Bassett’s employees dropped off a bagful of Blue Grass caps at McAnally’s barn this week, the same day that Valiant Nature worked half a mile in 48 seconds, the fastest of 64 horses on the workout tab for that distance.

The track was fast for the workout, but it might be muddy today. No rain is in the forecast, but the track was pounded Friday by an off-and-on storm that came with tornado warnings.

An off track could result in the scratch of Kandaly, the Louisiana Derby winner, but the morning-line favorites--Holy Bull at 4-5 and Valiant Nature at 9-5--are expected to run. Holy Bull, with six victories in seven starts at tracks in New Jersey, New York and Florida, seems comfortable with any surface. On a sloppy track last fall, he won the Futurity at Belmont Park, beating Dehere, the eventual juvenile champion who was injured in Florida this winter and eliminated from the Triple Crown picture.

Valiant Nature, who has won the Hollywood Futurity and one other race in four starts, ran in mud for the first time last month and finished third, behind Soul Of The Matter and Brocco, in the San Felipe Stakes at Santa Anita.

“There’s clay in the Keeneland track that makes the mud here different than it is most other places,” McAnally said. “Look at Paseana (his champion mare). She couldn’t stand up when she ran in mud in New York last year, but then she came to Keeneland, on another off track, and it didn’t bother her at all.”

More than the racing surface, Valiant Nature’s chief obstacle today is Holy Bull, who left the field behind at the start of the Florida Derby last month and won by 5 3/4 lengths. The Florida Derby, at 1 1/8 miles, is the same distance as the Blue Grass. The Kentucky Derby, which will be run at Churchill Downs on May 7, is an eighth of a mile farther.

Chris McCarron, who finished 10th aboard Lahint in the Florida Derby, said of Holy Bull: “He’s very impressive. He’s only had one bad race, and in the Florida Derby, he was awesome. He ran fast early, fast in the middle and fast late in that race. I’m no handicapper, I leave that part of it to the other guys, but if I were, I’d be making Holy Bull 8-5 or 9-5 to win the Kentucky Derby right now.”

The track bias favored front-runners at Gulfstream Park on Florida Derby day, and McAnally is hoping that contributed to Holy Bull’s victory.

“Maidens were running 1:09 and change in other races that day,” McAnally said. “And that kind of track will tend to help a horse with Holy Bull’s type of speed.”

Holy Bull worked three furlongs Friday in 34 seconds, but the Keeneland racing strip has undergone a major renovation since last year and has shown a bias against front-runners. Before Friday, and discounting races for 2-year-olds, only one horse has won wire to wire here.

Today’s race, which has drawn Warn Me, Mahogany Hall, Bonus Money and Chimes Band besides Kandaly and the two favorites, sets up as an early battle between Holy Bull and Valiant Nature, with Kandaly taking aim at the leaders through the stretch.

“There’s no question that Holy Bull will be in front,” McAnally said. “I don’t know how much pressure my horse (and jockey Laffit Pincay) will be giving them. The way the track’s been playing, Kandaly has the best running style to take advantage.”

McAnally is not second-guessing himself about not running at Santa Anita, where Brocco, Tabasco Cat and Strodes Creek ran 1-2-3 and Soul Of The Matter was scratched because of a leg blister.

“I know Holy Bull’s been awesome,” he said. “But there were three or four tough horses that we would have had to face in California. I like the way my horse is coming up to the race.”

McAnally, 61, is in the Racing Hall of Fame, and Jimmy Croll, Holy Bull’s 74-year-old trainer, is among five candidates on the ballot this year. Neither of them has won the Kentucky Derby, McAnally’s horses finishing fourth twice in seven tries and Croll finishing second to Alysheba with Bet Twice in 1987, which was only his second starter in the race.

Croll, who has found it difficult to evaluate the California contenders for the Kentucky Derby, will get some insight into the national 3-year-old picture today.

“They either have four champions or four ordinary horses out there,” he said. “Those horses have taken turns beating each other.”

The first Blue Grass was run in 1911 at the old Kentucky Assn. track in Lexington. Meridian finished second that year, then won the Kentucky Derby.

Since then, the Blue Grass, which has been run at Keeneland since 1937, has frequently been a harbinger of what will happen at Churchill Downs, 70 miles to the west. Twenty-three horses who raced in the Blue Grass won the Derby, and in the last seven years, six Blue Grass horses have either been first or second in the Derby.

Three of the last four Derby winners--Unbridled, Strike The Gold and Sea Hero--prepped in the Blue Grass. Whether the track is muddy or fast, this is a good place for a Derby candidate to be.