THOROUGHBRED RACING / BILL CHRISTINE : Hall of Fame Ballot Has Some Names Missing

The Racing Hall of Fame ballot came in the mail this week, without Winning Colors’ name on it. Maybe the real ballot will be arriving soon. Otherwise, this is somebody’s idea of an early April Fool’s joke.

Gary Stevens didn’t make the ballot, either, in his first year of eligibility. Perhaps there’s a bias that’s linked to the 1988 Kentucky Derby. Stevens rode Winning Colors to victory in the race that year, and since 1979 his mounts have earned close to $120 million. But Stevens’ cause is another screed for another day.

In her first year of eligibility--five years after running her last race--Winning Colors should have been a shoo-in for consideration, if not election, but the roan filly didn’t even land on the long list of horses that was sent to the 13-member nominating committee several weeks ago. This committee has been hard-boiled before. Pat Day didn’t make the jockeys’ ballot until his third year of eligibility.

The committee’s consensus for the distaff division has put Bold ‘N Determined, Glorious Song, La Prevoyante, Life’s Magic and Mom’s Command on the ballot, with an electorate of 100 determining which horse will be enshrined at Saratoga Springs, N.Y., this year. There is something to be said for each of those candidates, but what can’t be said is that any of them won a Kentucky Derby. In fact, only one of them, Life’s Magic, even ran in the Derby.

In racing, unlike other sports, one-shot accomplishments are sometimes enough to entrench a horse’s reputation. Don Larsen shouldn’t get into the baseball Hall of Fame just off his perfect game in the World Series, but a filly winning a Kentucky Derby is something else again.

“You win a race like the Derby or the Belmont and you get to dance all the dances,” said the late Pat O’Brien of the New York Racing Assn.

And Winning Colors wasn’t a one-shot horse. A month before she won the Kentucky Derby, owner Gene Klein’s filly beat colts for the first time in winning the Santa Anita Derby. No other filly has ever won those two races.

Winnings Colors’ winning margin in the Santa Anita Derby was 7 1/2 lengths. Only a few horses--Sunday Silence, Majestic Prince and Affirmed, who also won the Kentucky Derby--have won the Santa Anita fixture more convincingly.

Before Winning Colors, only two fillies--Ciencia in 1939 and Silver Spoon in 1959--had won the Santa Anita Derby.

Silver Spoon, fifth in the Kentucky Derby, was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1978. Regret, who in 1915 became the first of only three fillies to win the Kentucky Derby, made the Hall of Fame in 1957, two years after the shrine opened. Genuine Risk, who in 1980 became the next filly to win the Derby--and the first filly to run in the race since Silver Spoon--went into the hall in 1986.

Winning Colors, retired by Klein and trainer Wayne Lukas in 1989, won eight of 19 starts and earned $1.5 million. She was tough enough to run back in the Preakness, two weeks after the Derby, and while she and Forty Niner knocked one another around for the first three-quarters of a mile, Risen Star won at Pimlico, with Winning Colors finishing third, 2 1/2 lengths behind.

In the fall of 1988, Winning Colors returned to Churchill Downs for the Breeders’ Cup Distaff. Winning Colors, the undefeated Personal Ensign and Goodbye Halo raced to the wire together in what might have been the most thrilling Breeders’ Cup race ever run. Personal Ensign nailed Winning Colors in the last jump to win by a nose, with Goodbye Halo only half a length behind.

Personal Ensign was voted into the Hall of Fame in 1993, in her first chance on the ballot. Unbeaten, yes, but not a winner of the Kentucky Derby and the Santa Anita Derby. Winning Colors should be known by the company she kept, as well as the company she beat.