TRIPLE CROWN RATINGS : Trainer Put Twist in Preakness Tale

The next time trainer Billy Boniface brings a horse to the Preakness, no one will snicker.

There were snickers in 1983, when Boniface ran Deputed Testamony in the Preakness. The colt had a good record, but it had been earned in minor races at Pimlico and Keystone Park near Philadelphia.

Deputed Testamony ran twice for a claiming price of $22,500. When he stepped into the big leagues, he was sixth, beaten by 15 lengths, in the Blue Grass at Keeneland.

At entry time, two days before the Preakness, Boniface didn’t even name a jockey to ride Deputed Testamony. The assignment eventually went to Donnie Miller. The track came up sloppy and Deputed Testamony won over Desert Wine by 2 3/4 lengths, paying $31.

Miller has not ridden in a Preakness again, but Boniface was back at his home track Saturday, taking another stab in the Triple Crown race with Oliver’s Twist. This was a $6,000 yearling bought by Charles Oliver, an insurance man who took the horse on the recommendation of a friend who is a car salesman. Oliver’s Twist once ran for a $20,000 claiming tag and his biggest victory was in the Federico Tesio, a Pimlico stake that Deputed Testamony also had won.

Bonita Farm, about 50 miles from Pimlico, was developed by the Boniface family, and Billy Boniface trains his stock there and vans the horses to the Maryland tracks for their races. Oliver’s Twist arrived at Pimlico at noon Saturday, 5 1/2 hours before the Preakness.

Then he ran his best race. Under Alberto Delgado, Oliver’s Twist went off at 25-1 and beat Lukas’ Kentucky Derby winner, Thunder Gulch, by a neck for second place and came within half a length of beating Lukas’ Timber Country, the Preakness winner.

Coming off the track, Boniface said: “If that hole had opened [at the top of the stretch], I’m sure he was going to win the race. But nobody remembers who finishes second in the Preakness.”

They’ll remember this second-place finisher and, with the historical perspective that Deputed Testamony adds, Boniface will be hard-pressed to run a long-priced horse in the Preakness again.

As for the Belmont Stakes on June 10, they’ll have to run the race without Oliver’s Twist, who is expected to run in the Ohio Derby at Thistledown on June 17.

“Oliver’s Twist wants no part of [the Belmont’s] mile and a half,” said Boniface, a man who knows his horse.

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THE RATINGS

Horse S 1 2 3 Earnings 1. Timber Country 12 5 1 4 $1,560,400 2. Thunder Gulch 11 5 2 2 $1,492,146 3. Serena’s Song 16 9 2 1 $1,351,435 4. Jumron 9 5 2 1 $404,380 5. Oliver’s Twist 9 4 2 0 $390,755 6. Tejano Run 10 3 3 2 $626,147 7. Peaks And Valleys 7 5 1 1 $548,925 8. Suave Prospect 15 4 6 1 $458,850 9. Mecke 19 5 3 6 $373,570 10. Star Standard 12 4 1 1 $202,592

Advisory panel for The Times’ Triple Crown Ratings: Racing historian Jim Bolus; Trevor Denman, announcer at four Southern California tracks; Tom Durkin, track announcer in New York and Florida, and Dave Johnson, racing telecaster for ABC and ESPN.