THOROUGHBRED RACING / BILL CHRISTINE : Dear Wayne, Don’t Ruin Song With Another Derby Refrain

An open letter to trainer Wayne Lukas:

Don’t do it.

Don’t run the filly, Serena’s Song, in the Kentucky Derby two weeks from today.

Run her in the Kentucky Oaks, the day before the Derby. Against fillies. Where she belongs.

I know and you know that there’s a certain romance to running a filly in the Kentucky Derby. No one knows better than you. Since 1983, only three fillies have run in the Derby, and you saddled all three. You won the race in 1988, with Winning Colors, and she’s only the third filly to smell the roses in 120 years.

Having been there with a filly and succeeded, it’s going to be a great temptation to try to do it again. But the Derby takes a toll on most horses, especially fillies, and it isn’t fair to throw them in there against the boys.

The Derby can be a knockout punch to a filly’s career. You saddled Althea for a seven-length victory in the Arkansas Derby in 1984, a race run in record time. Then you blew into Churchill Downs with Althea and another filly, Life’s Magic, and ran them as a favored two-horse entry. Giving the occasion an extra touch, you and your wife, Shari, were married a few days before the Derby.

Life’s Magic finished eighth and went on to win a Breeders’ Cup race and two Eclipse Awards, but Althea’s career was all but over after the Derby. She led the race for three-quarters of a mile, then faded on the far turn. She finished next to last, beaten by more than 30 lengths. Althea, who died recently after fracturing her skull in a collision with another horse, ran only once more after the Derby, her career cut short by suspensory ligament injuries.

Winning Colors also had an undistinguished career after her Derby victory. If the Derby didn’t get her, the Preakness and Belmont Stakes did. But after she won the Derby, you couldn’t skip the other Triple Crown races. The Derby was Winning Colors’ sixth victory in seven starts; after the Derby, she won two of 12.

Winning Colors wasn’t even the best horse in the Derby--Risen Star was--but the race unfolded perfectly for the filly and Risen Star was caught in an unlucky trip.

Remember how it went around the barns that Derby week? “Somebody has to run with the filly,” was the battle cry, but there were no volunteers. None of the trainers wanted to sacrifice their horses.

You could spot the scenario eight furlongs away: Winning Colors goes to the lead, takes a breather and then holds on to win.

That’s exactly the way the Derby played out. Forty Niner and Pat Day chased Winning Colors and Gary Stevens home and missed catching her by a neck. Risen Star, who would win the Preakness and Belmont, got hung up in traffic and finished third.

Serena’s Song is not as robust a filly as Winning Colors--and that’s important--but her running style is the same. She’s a free-running horse, a horse who would be on the lead or fighting for it if she ran in the Kentucky Derby.

In Winning Colors’ year, because of the way the race shaped up, that was a hole card; but this year there’s going to be plenty of speed in the Derby, and the front-runners will burn one another up.

Talkin Man, the Wood Memorial winner, runs on the front end. So does Wild Syn, who won the Blue Grass Stakes, leading wire to wire. Afternoon Deelites, even though trainer Richard Mandella has mentioned the dicey prospect of changing his style, probably will be up front too.

These are the kind of horses, and Serena’s Song is one of them, that seldom win a Derby. For every Go For Gin, Winning Colors and Spend A Buck, there are dozens of other speed horses who were out of gas at the quarter pole in the Derby.

Serena’s Song may have soundly beaten colts in the Jim Beam Stakes three weeks ago, but the field she faced wasn’t much. Tejano Run, who was second, hasn’t won a race in more than five months. The Jim Beam wasn’t the Derby by any stretch. It is no more of a litmus test for Churchill Downs than Althea’s breathtaking Arkansas Derby was for her Derby.

So, Wayne, don’t turn up your nose at the Kentucky Oaks, which at 1 1/8 miles is an eighth of a mile shorter than the Derby. You’ve won the Oaks four times already, and you know how important it is. Take Serena’s Song to the Oaks, win it at 2-5 odds and don’t apologize for not running her in the Derby.

Bob Lewis, who races Serena’s Song with his wife, Beverly, is 70 years old and relatively new to racing, but he seems to have Derby Fever well under control and he’s putting the final call in your hands. Besides, the Lewises own one-third of another of your horses, Timber Country, and he could still win the Derby despite his unsatisfactory races at Santa Anita.

Having said all this, I imagine you’ll enter Serena’s Song in both the Oaks and the Derby and keep the media and other horsemen dangling right on up to Oaks day on May 5. It’s the smart thing to do, of course, because you can never tell, something might happen to the other speed in the Derby. Will there be any tip-offs before Oaks day itself?

Probably only if you and Shari renew your vows.

*

Horse Racing Notes

Corey Nakatani, who has ridden the winners of seven of the 11 Grade I races at the Santa Anita meeting, will be astride favored Sandpit in Sunday’s $400,000 San Juan Capistrano Handicap. River Rhythm and Square Cut, second and third, respectively, when Sandpit won the San Luis Rey Stakes on March 26, ran at equal weights that day but will carry less against trainer Richard Mandella’s 6-year-old this time. The intriguing horse is Red Bishop, who has earned $1 million while running all over the world, most recently in Hong Kong. The field, in post-position order, with jockeys and weights: Liyoun, Goncalino Almeida, 112 pounds; Sandpit, Nakatani, 122; Bataillon, Alex Solis, 114; Square Cut, Fernando Valenzuela, 116; Ofuscador, Omar Berrio, 110; Frenchpark, Kent Desormeaux, 117; River Rhythm, Chris McCarron, 114; Red Bishop, Mike Smith, 119; and Special Price, Eddie Delahoussaye, 115.

Heavenly Prize, an Eclipse Award winner saddled with the reputation of never having won a race outside New York, beat Halo America by one length Friday in the $500,000 Apple Blossom Handicap at Oaklawn Park. Paseana, who had won the stake twice, finished third, beaten by five lengths. She carried 122 pounds, two more than Heavenly Prize and six more than Halo America. Heavenly Prize, ridden by Pat Day, paid $4 as the favorite and ran 1 1/16 miles in 1:42 3/5. . . . At Pimlico, where Desormeaux will ride in several stakes today, local jockeys are upset about losing their mounts. Edgar Prado, replaced by Desormeaux aboard Western Echo in the $200,000 Federico Tesio Stakes, was a no-show to exercise a stakes horse for trainer Bud Delp this week. “I’m sorry he (Prado) feels this way,” Delp said. “The Meyerhoffs (owners Harry and Tom) wanted to bring in Kent. They are paying him a substantial retainer to ride their horse. They have been my clients for 26 years. I’m going to do what they want me to do.” Before moving to California in 1990, Desormeaux was the leading rider at the Maryland tracks from 1987-89.