Trainer’s Joy Is Unbridled Before Derby

Sunday morning, the day after the Florida Derby, a jockey agent stood at trainer Jim Ryerson’s barn at Gulfstream Park and pulled a small electronic memo unit out of his jacket pocket.

“What’s your [phone] number?” the agent asked Ryerson. “I want to put it in here.”

Ryerson recited his number and the agent punched the digits on his keypad. Ryerson smiled and said, “I know I got it made now. My number goes in there, and I got it made.”

Ryerson, 43, who has been training on his own for 20 years, might also have it made because he’s going to the Kentucky Derby with Unbridled’s Song, the powerful winner of the Florida Derby. If Churchill Downs ran the Kentucky Derby now, Unbridled’s Song would be the odds-on favorite.

The Derby will be run May 4, and Unbridled’s Song will race once more before then, in the $500,000 Wood Memorial at Aqueduct on April 13. Unbridled’s Song is a New York horse--he broke his maiden at Saratoga last August, and he won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Belmont Park in October--but he has never trained or run at Aqueduct. Ryerson, who usually keeps his horses at Belmont, will make an exception with Unbridled’s Song and train him at Aqueduct, about 20 miles away, before the Wood.

“This horse loves Belmont,” Ryerson said. “But he demands that we get him used to the other track.”

Unbridled’s Song is a high-spirited colt who worked himself into a lather in the final minutes before the Fountain of Youth Stakes, which was run three weeks before the Florida Derby. Unbridled’s Song lost by a neck to Built For Pleasure, the 143-1 shot, in the Fountain of Youth, and Ryerson spent the ensuing weeks trying to find the combination that would get the colt to the gate more relaxed for the Florida Derby.

It was a simple but important thing that probably made the difference: In the post parade, jockey Mike Smith kept Unbridled’s Song away from the other horses, including the lead pony that had been so disruptive before the Fountain of Youth.

“For a lightly raced colt, this horse is not green, but he has a nervous side to him,” Ryerson said. “Before the Fountain of Youth, he tossed himself on his pony. So this time, we took a shot, a big shot, by keeping him away from the pony. It turned out that all the horse was saying to us was, ‘Leave me alone.’ ”

The Wood is no longer the fashionable way to get a horse to the Kentucky Derby, but Ernie Paragallo, the brash owner of Unbridled’s Song, is a New Yorker who wants to run at Aqueduct, and Ryerson seems comfortable with the decision.

Before Go For Gin finished second in the Wood in 1994 and then won the Derby three weeks later, a horse hadn’t come out of Aqueduct and run first at Churchill Downs since Pleasant Colony in 1981.

For years, the Wood was only a fortnight before the Derby, and many horsemen considered the spacing was too tight. By the time Aqueduct officials reacted, moving the Wood back a week, Keeneland had already switched its Blue Grass Stakes to three weeks before the Derby, and that became the prep race of choice for many trainers. The Wood has been so dismal in recent years that it has been downgraded to a Grade II race by the national stakes committee.

Unbridled’s Song will bring the spotlight back to the Wood. Aqueduct officials should unfurl a red carpet from the colt’s stall to the paddock on race day.

Paragallo, 37, an investment banker and computer software executive who has been in racing for about five years, could be running his horse in the Wood instead of the Blue Grass because of a couple of lawsuits that have been filed against him in Kentucky, but he says that he holds no grudge against the Keeneland racing management.

Paragallo’s problems are with the Keeneland sales company, which has sued him twice in the last two years after he bought horses at auction there. A dispute over a $450,000 yearling in 1995 led to a disagreement about the interest on the amount owed, and this year Paragallo was sued again, for more than $600,000. Paragallo has said that he paid the $600,000.

Horse Racing Notes

Ide may be an excellent horse and a legitimate Kentucky Derby contender, but as long as he campaigns against third-rate opposition at Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs, Ark., he will still be a mystery colt when he arrives at Churchill Downs. The winner of six in a row since he lost his first two starts last year at Saratoga, Ide will be a heavy favorite in a seven-horse field Saturday in the $100,000 Rebel at Oaklawn. Ide’s final Derby tune-up will be the $500,000 Arkansas Derby on April 13. . . . Trainer Wayne Lukas plans to run both Honour And Glory and Prince Of Thieves in the $1-million Santa Anita Derby on April 6. . . . Halo Sunshine, second to Honour And Glory in the San Rafael, will run Saturday at Bay Meadows in the $200,000 Golden State Derby. . . . Gary Stevens drew Busy Banana and the inside post for their Saturday match race against Richard Of England, who will be ridden by Julie Krone. The two jockeys also have mounts in Saturday’s $150,000 Santa Ana Handicap, Stevens riding Matiara and Krone getting the assignment on Bis Cat. Others running are Angel in My Heart, Pharma and Real Connection.

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Triple Crown Ratings

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No. Horse Starts 1 2 3 Earnings 1. Unbridled’s Song 6 3 2 0 $923,000 2. Ide 8 6 0 1 $303,760 3. Honour And Glory 7 4 1 1 $436,102 4. Editor’s Note 13 3 4 1 $385,534 5. Diligence 7 4 2 0 $214,900 6. Prince of Thieves 4 2 0 0 $97,250 7. Roar 8 3 1 2 $95,470 8. Cobra King 8 5 1 $256,825 9. Victory Speech 8 4 1 3 $116,162 10. Louis Quatorze 7 3 2 0 $151,000

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Advisory panel for The Times’ Triple Crown Ratings: Racing historian Jim Bolus; Tom Dukin, track announcer in New York and Florida; and Chris Lincoln, racing telecaster for ESPN.