THOROUGHBRED RACING / BILL CHRISTINE : Blinkers to Help Dazzling Falls, Others in Derby

‘Tis wise of course to back a horse

Who’s running true and good;

But stop and think, ere laying chink

On him that wears a hood.

--Origin unknown *

At least 33 horses won the Kentucky Derby while wearing blinkers, including Secretariat, the 1973 Triple Crown champion, who in 21 races never ran without them.

But for more than two decades since, a horse with a hood has usually not been the horse to bet at Churchill Downs.

Alysheba won in 1987 while wearing blinkers, but since then no blinkered horse has succeeded. Before Alysheba, you have to go back to Bold Forbes in 1976 to find a Derby winner with blinkers.

In the 121st Derby a week from Saturday, only a few of the 3-year-olds will be wearing blinkers. One is Dazzling Falls, the Arkansas Derby winner, whose lime-green hood and black eyecups will make him the easiest horse to spot in the post parade.

Thunder Gulch, winner of the Florida Derby and more recently a desultory fourth in the Blue Grass Stakes, and Mecke are Derby contenders who also have been running with blinkers.

It used to be that blinkers were the equine equivalent of Hester Prynne’s scarlet letter. “The rogue’s badge,” horsemen from another era called them.

But now they are socially acceptable. Practical too. By one national estimate, more than half the horses go postward with blinkers as their trainers try to add speed, block out distractions and keep them running in a straight line.

Dazzling Falls is a colt with a late-running style, but in many races he had shown a lack of persistence once he passed horses in front of him. His ears would pop up, like a rabbit spotting a cabbage patch, as he invited rivals to regain the lead.

Trainers are sometimes loath to change anything before a big race, but when Garrett Gomez, Dazzling Falls’ jockey, suggested blinkers before the Remington Park Derby, a frustrated Chuck Turco didn’t have to be persuaded.

Dazzling Falls won his final start as a 2-year-old, the Hawthorne Juvenile in suburban Chicago, but finished third and second at short prices in his first two outings this year.

“He wouldn’t try after he made the lead running down the (stretch),” said Turco, a 33-year-old trainer with his first Derby horse. “He’d just toy with the other horses. You’ve got to keep him to his task or he’ll just jack around on you.”

Dazzling Falls won the Remington Derby by 3 1/2 lengths. He won last Saturday’s Arkansas Derby at Oaklawn Park by 2 1/4, with Gomez, by one count, using his whip 15 times through the stretch. His much tougher assignment on May 6 will be the third derby in less than a month for a horse trying to become the first Nebraska-bred to win the Kentucky Derby. No Nebraska-bred has ever started in the Derby.

Turco doesn’t believe that Dazzling Falls will be a worn-out horse in the Derby.

“I’m not going to drill him (in training) here,” he said. “I’ll bring over a fresh, sound horse on Derby day.”

Turco’s horses have been stabled at Remington Park since the Oklahoma City track opened in 1988. He was at Oaklawn a week ago, getting ready for the Arkansas Derby, when the federal building at home was bombed. Remington was closed for three days while the community tried to recover.

“It was a horrible tragedy,” Turco said. “We were in a somber mood at Oaklawn, and it was hard to concentrate on what we were doing. It put a damper on everything that we accomplished there. But this horse gives Oklahoma City something to root for in the Derby, so maybe he’ll pick up a few heads if he runs good. Maybe he’ll put a smile on a few people’s faces.”

Fifty-four years ago, there was a smile on Ben Jones’ face the morning before the Derby.

In those days, the Derby Trial was run four days before the Derby, and Whirlaway, the 3-5 favorite in the first race, tried to bolt to the outside fence at the top of the stretch and finished second, beaten by one length.

For the Derby, Jones replaced jockey Wendell Eads with 25-year-old Eddie Arcaro, who had won his first of five Derbies three years before with Lawrin. Jones also rigged a one-eyed blinker that would block the vision in Whirlaway’s right eye. His left eye would be clear so he could see the rail.

There was little time for Jones and Arcaro to test Whirlaway’s new equipment. A half-mile workout was scheduled for Churchill Downs 33 hours before the race. Before Arcaro broke off with the horse, Jones told him that he’d be stationed just off the rail on his big gray pony, facing Whirlaway and Arcaro as they reached the top of the stretch, where the colt had bolted in the Derby Trial.

“I was to take the horse between B.A. (Jones) and the rail,” Arcaro said. “I said to myself, if the old man is game enough to stand there, I’m game enough to run him down.”

Arcaro had never ridden Whirlaway, but with the help of the strange blinker, the colt drove through the four-foot hole between Jones’ pony and the fence. Whirlaway won the Derby by eight lengths, and he kept running straight in the Preakness and Belmont Stakes. He was the fifth of 11 horses to sweep the Triple Crown.