Owner Sings His Own Tune After Victory

In the days leading up to the Florida Derby, trainer Jim Ryerson was ignoring the curse that goes with winning the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile. Since that race was first run in 1984, none of its winners have gone on to capture the Kentucky Derby, and the most recent Juvenile winner is Ryerson’s Unbridled’s Song.

“We don’t want to talk about the curse unless we have to,” Ryerson said one morning at his Gulfstream Park barn. “I’d like to see Saturday before I consider any curse.”

Saturday has come and gone, and the curse is in danger of finally being sent to wherever debunked curses go. Unbridled’s Song, whose sire, Unbridled, won the Florida Derby and the Kentucky Derby in 1990, is back in the big time. After two second-place finishes in shorter races at Gulfstream this winter, Ryerson’s dark gray colt ran one of the fastest times in the Florida Derby in years, and won the race by one of its biggest margins. The colt’s 5 3/4-length victory, in a time of 1:47 4/5 for 1 1/8 miles, has made his owner, Ernie Paragallo, cockier than ever.

After the Breeders’ Cup, Paragallo flatly said that Unbridled’s Song was going to win the Kentucky Derby and sweep the Triple Crown, and he repeated that boast Saturday after a crowd of 27,428 had watched his horse win. In March of last year, Paragallo thought that he had sold Unbridled’s Song for $1.4 million, which would have been a record price for an untried 2-year-old, but the swaggering New Yorker took the colt back after the dissatisfied Japanese buyer, Hiroshi Fujita, looked at a post-sale X-ray and concluded that the horse had a chipped ankle.

Now, Unbridled’s Song has three wins and two seconds in six starts, and earnings of $923,000. The Florida Derby was worth $500,000, and he claimed $300,000 of it.

“I totally expected to win this race,” Paragallo said Saturday. “The horse was smarter than the owner, the trainer and the jockey, so this time we just let him do what he wanted to do.”

With Mike Smith aboard, Unbridled’s Song stalked Appealing Skier through the early going, passed him on the far turn and coasted home without feeling the jockey’s whip. Only Holy Bull has run the stake faster in the last 12 years, and Unbridled’s Song matched Holy Bull’s victory margin. Since the first Florida Derby, in 1952, the only larger margin of victory was by Plugged Nickle, who won by six lengths in 1980.

While Unbridled’s Song became the Kentucky Derby favorite, another of the contenders--and the 19-10 favorite Saturday--saw his stock plummet. Cobra King, a winner at Gulfstream around two turns in January, ran his worst race, finishing eighth in the nine-horse field, almost 16 lengths behind Unbridled’s Song.

Jockey Chris McCarron couldn’t find a plausible explanation. “I’m in shock,” McCarron said. “He ran the first three strides out of the gate, and that was all. He was flat all the way. He never tried to run. Then when he got some sand in his face, he started to climb on me.”

Before the Florida Derby, the unorthodox plan was to run Cobra King Saturday and nowhere else until the Kentucky Derby. Now, his trainer, Mike Puype, said that he’s likely to run in the Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland on April 13, three weeks before the Derby. At least Cobra King won’t have to worry about Unbridled’s Song until Churchill Downs. On the same day as the Blue Grass, Saturday’s winner will be running in the Wood Memorial at Aqueduct.

The second choice Saturday, Unbridled’s Song paid $6. Editor’s Note, who has won only two of 13 starts, finished second after being last for half a mile, and trainer Wayne Lukas, who won both the Florida Derby and Kentucky Derby last year with Thunder Gulch and has a five-race winning streak in the Triple Crown, may also run him in the Blue Grass.

“My horse was spinning his wheels the first 100 yards, and then he got comfortable,” said Gary Stevens, who rode Editor’s Note.

Skip Away finished third, half a length behind Editor’s Note, and to stay away from Unbridled’s Song, his trainer, Sonny Hine, may also go to the Blue Grass. Louis Quatorze was fourth, and after him came Tour’s Big Red, Appealing Skier, Built For Pleasure, Cobra King and Ensign Ray.

By winning the Florida Derby with Unbridled’s Song, Thunder Gulch and Holy Bull the last three years, Smith equaled a record held by Bill Hartack, who won the race with Gen. Duke, Tim Tam and Easy Spur in 1957-59.

Stevens got to ride Thunder Gulch in the Kentucky Derby after Smith took off him to ride Talkin Man, who was 12th in Louisville. Smith probably won’t make that mistake again. “This was a dynamite race,” he said of Unbridled’s Song. “He battled for the early lead and then he just ran away from them. This is really racehorse time. He is getting better each time.”

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Horse Racing Notes

Both of trainer Shug McGaughey’s Kentucky Derby prospects ran well on the Florida Derby-day card. Roar won an allowance at Gulfstream Park by 8 1/2 lengths and returned Saturday to win the $75,000 Swale Stakes by one length over Gomtuu. Earlier, Diligence, trained by Nick Zito and owned by George Steinbrenner, won the $50,500 Unbridled Stakes, with McGaughey’s Draw finishing second, 1 1/4 lengths back. Roar came from off the pace, running seven furlongs in 1:22 2/5. “Roar’s the more experienced of my two,” McGaughey said. “The big thing for Draw is that he showed he wants to go long. But he’s still green.” Mike Smith rode both horses, and there will be a line of agents for other jockeys at McGaughey’s barn door this morning. Roar is likely to wind up at the Jim Beam Stakes at Turfway Park on March 30; Draw will run in either the Blue Grass or the Flamingo at Hialeah on April 6.

Diligence, who has four wins and two seconds in seven starts, ran 1 1/8 miles in 1:49. “My horse [galloped out] an extra 16th of a mile and he responded well,” Zito said. “He’s as good as anyone who ran in the Florida Derby.” Diligence will run in either the Wood or the Blue Grass. . . . Cigar worked seven furlongs in 1:23 3/5 at Gulfstream and was to leave Saturday night for Dubai, where he’ll run in a $4-million race on March 27. “The work was quicker than I expected,” trainer Bill Mott said, “but I think it was a fast racetrack and it was freshly harrowed.”