Owner, Trainer Hope Cobra King Can Regain Bite

About an hour after last Saturday’s Florida Derby, owner Gary Biszantz and trainer Mike Puype won a two-mile race at Gulfstream Park with Mr. Lucky Junction, a 6-year-old gelding who was running for a $40,000 claiming price.

That victory, worth $12,000, was hardly enough to raise the spirits of the crestfallen Biszantz and Puype, who had watched their favored Cobra King finish eighth, beating only one horse, in the $500,000 Florida Derby. In what was by far his worst race, Cobra King finished about 16 lengths behind Unbridled’s Song, who has become the favorite for the Kentucky Derby.

Biszantz, who bred Cobra King and races him with his wife, Betty, is as dumbfounded now as he was a week ago about their colt’s poor performance. The victory by Mr. Lucky Junction only compounded the consternation.

“We had been galloping Mr. Lucky Junction with Cobra King since we claimed [Mr. Lucky Junction] at Gulfstream,” Biszantz said. “Mr. Lucky Junction could never keep up. We’d even give him a 10-length head start, and Cobra King would still pass him. So how can you figure this game? Both horses run the same day, and while one of them wins at two miles, the other one doesn’t run two steps.”

Because Cobra King ran so poorly, and Puype couldn’t find anything physically wrong with him afterward, it was decided to run him in the Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland on April 13. The plan had been to use the Florida Derby as the colt’s final prep for the Kentucky Derby, six weeks from today.

For years, the Blue Grass was run only nine days before the Derby. Since its date was changed in 1989 to three weeks out, the Blue Grass has been the most reliable Derby prep: In the last six years, four Derby winners--Unbridled, Strike The Gold, Sea Hero and Thunder Gulch--came out of the Blue Grass. Prairie Bayou and Summer Squall, who finished second in the Derby and then won the Preakness, also came out of the Blue Grass.

With Unbridled’s Song, a son of Unbridled, running on April 13 in the Wood Memorial at Aqueduct, the Blue Grass field should increase. Right now, the race has the look of a losers’ bracket. Besides Cobra King, the horses who ran second, third and fourth in the Florida Derby--Editor’s Note, Skip Away and Louis Quatorze--will probably show up at Keeneland.

Cobra King had beaten Editor’s Note by 1 1/2 lengths in the Holy Bull Stakes at Gulfstream on Jan. 20.

“It’s hard to imagine that Editor’s Note went right by us [in the Florida Derby],” Puype said. “My horse came back with his face covered with the top of the track, but that’s no excuse. He’s worked in company, and he was used to being behind [flying] dirt.”

Before the Florida Derby, Cobra King had been a near-perfect horse. His career began with a second-place finish in a minor stakes race at Golden Gate Fields. After that, he won all but one of his six races, and his fourth-place finish as the 7-10 favorite in September’s Del Mar Futurity was accompanied by legitimate second-guessing.

“He hadn’t eaten well a couple of days before the race,” Biszantz said. “But we were heavy favorites and thought he was good enough to win anyway. We thought that that experience taught us something about the horse. That was his third race at the [Del Mar] meet, and we came out of the futurity convinced that he needed more time between his races.

“In the Florida Derby, he didn’t fire, just like at Del Mar, only he didn’t have any of the excuses. He ate up after the race. There were no signs that he was tired. He actually looked better after the Florida Derby than he did after he won the Holy Bull. We still like our horse a lot. Chris [McCarron] can’t explain what happened and wants to ride him again, to give him another chance.”

Should Cobra King run another bad race in the Blue Grass, he’ll skip the Kentucky Derby.

“We aren’t going to force him into the Derby,” Biszantz said. “If he doesn’t belong there, we aren’t going to take the chance of beating him up just to run him. There are other races, and I’ve got a lot of horses, and I’m going to continue to have a lot, so there’ll be other opportunities [for the Derby]. But let’s see how he runs at Keeneland before we give up on this one.”

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Horse Racing Notes

Shipping from Florida, Cobra King arrived Thursday at Churchill Downs, where the temperatures were in the mid-30s. Puype will train the colt at Churchill before vanning him the 70 miles to Keeneland for the Blue Grass. . . . Semoran, the Santa Anita trainee who has won all three of his starts as a 3-year-old, faces Devil’s Honor and five others today in the $300,000 Remington Park Derby in Oklahoma. Russell Baze will ride Semoran. . . . Eddie Delahoussaye will ride Halo Sunsine for the first time in today’s $200,000 Golden State Derby at Bay Meadows.

British bookmakers have installed Cigar as the even-money favorite for Wednesday’s $4-million Dubai World Cup. Other odds: Halling, 5-1; Pentire and Tamayaz, both 6-1; L’Carriere, 10-1; Soul Of The Matter, 12-1; Larrocha, 14-1; Danewin, 40-1; and Lively Mount, Needle Gun and Torrential, all 66-1. Betting on the race starts at Santa Anita at 12:30 p.m. Sunday. On race day, the windows open at 6 a.m., with post time an hour later.

With Northern Spur on the sidelines again, Windsharp and Wandesta will try to become the first female to win the San Luis Rey Stakes. The $250,000 race, to be run at Santa Anita on Sunday, drew eight horses, including Urgent Request, Complot, Special Price, Silver Wizard, Big Sky Jim and Flying Marfa. Running against males in the San Luis Obispo Handicap, Windsharp and Wandesta finished 1-2, separated by three-quarters of a length. . . . Corey Nakatani, after serving the first day of a five-day suspension this week, obtained a court stay and awaits a hearing. . . . Stewards at Hialeah gave Pat Valenzuela a 30-day suspension after he didn’t show up to ride the first two days of the meet.