Unbridled’s Song Has the Look of a Winner : Breeders’ Cup: Sale for $1.4 million fell through, but gray colt has chance to repay those who kept faith in him.

His sire, Unbridled, won the 1990 Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs and the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Belmont Park, but that is not what makes the appearance of Unbridled’s Song so intriguing in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile here on Saturday.

This is the same gray colt who went through the sales ring in March at the Barretts auction in Pomona. A Japanese importer-exporter, Hiroshi Fujita, outbid Sid Craig and Wayne Lukas and bought the horse for $1.4 million, breaking the world record for an unraced 2-year-old.

Within a week, however, that record was erased. Post-sale X-rays of Unbridled’s Song showed a spot on the left front ankle. That spot turned out to be a bone flake, and Fujita’s agents told Jerry McMahon, the general manager of Barretts, they didn’t want the horse.

McMahon made the phone call he hated to make. Sales companies routinely collect a 5% commission on the horses they sell, so that was $70,000 out the window. Buzz Chace was on the other end, in New Jersey, and he was not thrilled by the call, either. Chace, the racing manager for Ernie Paragallo, the owner of the horse, stood to collect a 10% fee of $140,000 for his part in the deal.

“We’ve got a problem with the sale of that horse,” McMahon said.

Chace called Paragallo, a Long Island computer software executive who went full bore into racing about 3 1/2 years ago. He has been buying and selling horses since, and has 40 head in training.

“This is no problem,” Paragallo said to Chace. “Let’s take the horse back.”

Paragallo promised Chace 10% of whatever Unbridled’s Song would earn in his lifetime. In two starts--a maiden victory by 8 1/2 lengths at Saratoga in August and a fourth-place finish in the Champagne Stakes at Belmont on Oct. 7--Unbridled’s Song has earned only $48,000. But he will have a chance to add substantially to that total Saturday in the $1-million Juvenile. First place is worth $572,000.

“He’s short on experience,” said the colt’s 43-year-old trainer, James Ryerson, who has never had a Breeders’ Cup starter. “But this horse looks the part. He’s big, but he’s not heavy. He looks more like a 3-year-old physically. He ran fresh [on the lead] in the Champagne, because he hadn’t had a race in six weeks, and he went too fast. That race toughened him up, and he came out of it well. There’s other speed in Saturday’s race, and I’m happy to see that, because our horse will rate. He should be able to sit just off the pace.”

Mike Smith, who has won four Breeders’ Cup races in the last three years, will ride Unbridled’s Song for the third consecutive time.

“I think Mike got outsmarted by [Eddie] Delahoussaye in the Champagne,” Paragallo said. “We were supposed to stalk Delahoussaye’s horse [George Steinbrenner’s Diligence], but Delahoussaye took back, and then we were out in front, by ourselves. Mike was left out to dry.”

Smith was aboard Unbridled’s Song for a fast five-furlong workout Monday in: 59 2/5.

Maria’s Mon, who beat Diligence by 3 3/4 lengths in winning the Champagne, broke down in a workout here last week and is out of the Juvenile. Of the 13 horses that are expected to be entered when Breeders’ Cup post positions are drawn today, four--Appealing Skier, Sampras, Seacliff and Secreto De Estado--are unbeaten. And Wayne Lukas, who has notched seven of his record 12 Breeders’ Cup victories in the two races for 2-year-olds, will run the trio of Honour And Glory, Hennessy and Editor’s Note.

Paragallo maintains that he is not bitter about the $1.4-million that got away when the sale of Unbridled’s Song was canceled. The colt was bred by Mandysland Farm, in Kentucky, and as a yearling had been sold to Paragallo for $200,000 last year at Saratoga.

“I wasn’t high on selling the horse to begin with,” Paragallo said. “Bobby Scanlon has been around some of the best horses in Europe, going all the way back to Nijinsky, and in Florida this year, the second day we had the tack on this horse, he said that this was the best 2-year-old he’d ever seen.

“[The buyer] was obligated to pay, because this was a flake and not a chip, and people at the sale knew this going in. I could have taken it to arbitration, but I didn’t want to fool with it. I think the buyer got bad advice. I think he could have gotten better representation.”

Chace said that potential buyers in Pomona were told before the sale that the flake would go away if the ankle was blistered and the colt was rested for 30 days.

“That’s what we did when we got the horse back,” Chace said. “And what happened is that the flake disintegrated.”

Ryerson’s horses were stabled at Monmouth Park this summer, and after one of Unbridled’s Song’s first workouts, a clocker at the New Jersey track said, “I’ve been waiting 25 years to use this comment about a horse, and I’m going to use it today. I’m going to put that he worked like he could have caught a pigeon.”

Although Unbridled’s Song has run only twice, he has been scratched four times. Twice, fevers knocked him out of races, one of them the Belmont Futurity, which preceded the Champagne.

“At Saratoga, I put him in as part of an entry,” Ryerson said. “I should have never done it, because we really didn’t intend to run him, and I took a lot of heat when he was scratched.”

He’ll run Saturday, in the name of Paraneck Stable, which is a combination of Paragallo’s name and Lloyd Neck, N.Y., where he lives.

“I’ve had several offers for the horse,” Paragallo said. “A couple for more than the $1.4 million. But he’s not for sale anymore. There’s no price tag on this horse.”