Laughter Stops at Louisville

It was hard to take the Santa Anita Derby seriously in the old days. For one thing, the Eastern writers were so derisive. The leader of the pack at the time, the late Joe Palmer, used to write things like “unless you count times taken in California.” The implication was, all West Coast tracks ran downhill. Palmer liked to refer to Coast horses as “nice little California sprinters.”

California was considered the Three-Eye league of racing. A nice place for sprinters but not legitimate mile-and-a-quarter horses.

Our record did nothing to dispel the notion. Santa Anita Derby winners went to the Kentucky Derby and got clobbered. A horse called He Did won the second Santa Anita Derby (1936) and ran seventh at Kentucky. Fairy Hill won in 1937 and finished 11th. “Who’d he beat out there--burros?” the hardboots howled.

There were some small stirrings. Dauber finished second in the Santa Anita in 1938, then finished second at Kentucky, won the Preakness and finished second in the Belmont. He was beaten by a length at Louisville and a neck at the Belmont after being badly bumped and borne out, and probably came within a step or two of being a Triple Crown winner.

The Santa Anita Derby has produced only one Triple Crown winner in its 58-year history--Affirmed in 1978--but it became a factor in the classics after Calumet’s Hill Gail in 1952 won at Arcadia and went back over the mountains to double in the Kentucky.

But he was a Calumet horse, and the racing establishment took the position he was only slumming in California.

Kentuckians took particular joy in besting horses owned by movie stars or moguls. MGM’s Louis B. Mayer went back with two Santa Anita Derby winners, On Trust and Your Host, only to get shuffled back at Churchill. Your Host finished ninth, but On Trust finished fourth and two weeks later finished second in the Preakness.

But the myth of Eastern invincibility prevailed until Determine won both Santa Anita and Kentucky in 1954 and Swaps did it again in 1955. Swaps’ victory was particularly galling. He was not only a “nice little California sprinter” who ran away from Nashua, the pride of Kentucky and Long Island, in the stretch at Louisville, but he was also a California-bred animal, only the second such to win in the long history of the race.

Our racing stock ceased being a laughing stock. And, now, all these years later, the notion that California horses are just sound-stage cayuses better suited to Tom Mix movies than stirrup-to-stirrup racing is threadbare.

You didn’t even have to win the Santa Anita Derby to be a threat at Louisville in May. Gato Del Sol was fourth at Santa Anita but won the Kentucky Derby. Ferdinand was third at Arcadia but won the Kentucky Derby, was second in the Preakness and third in the Belmont.

Tank’s Prospect was ninth in the Santa Anita but won the Preakness. But that’s nothing. Gallahadion ran 13th in the Santa Anita but won the Kentucky Derby. Tabasco Cat was second at Santa Anita but won the Preakness and the Belmont. Last year, Timber Country was fourth at Santa Anita and won the Preakness.

So, nice little California sprinters have won the Kentucky Derby 11 times, the Preakness 11 times and the Belmont four times, produced one of history’s 11 Triple Crown winners and produced one of only three fillies ever to win Kentucky.

Nobody laughs anymore when a “Hollywood horse” shows up at Kentucky, Baltimore or Long Island. They make him the favorite, usually.

A big reason for this is a Hollywood type who treats horses the way Bobby Knight treats shooting guards or small forwards. The railbirds get their watches out when a Wayne Lukas colt hits the main track.

Lukas was a basketball coach in his youth, and he takes teams to the classic races the way a Rick Pitino would to a Final Four.

Lukas’ aim is horse-racing’s Final Three and he gets better and better at it. His first victory at Louisville was with one of the three fillies to win there, Winning Colors in 1988.

Lukas thinks the sex of a horse is irrelevant. Of the 36 fillies to start the Kentucky Derby, he has saddled four--in the last 11 years.

It’s not that he thinks the Run for the Roses is the fifth at River Downs. Wayne has started 26 horses at that race--and won two. But he is working on a string of five consecutive Triple Crown victories (with three horses).

Wayne has a string of five 3-year-olds ready for a run at increasing that skein. Two are ready for Saturday’s 59th running of the Santa Anita Derby.

What are his chances? Well, Honour And Glory (he is owned by a Briton, hence the “u” in the first name) and Prince Of Thieves have a good chance of carrying on where Tabasco Cat, Thunder Gulch and Timber Country left off.

Can they? Wayne thinks so. “The Eastern horse--Unbridled’s Song--has to be the No. 1 seed in this tournament,” he said. “But Unbridled’s Song gets a base on balls in the Wood Memorial next week . . . so, he’ll roll into Churchill with a Florida Derby and a Wood. But I’m reluctant to get on his bandwagon. He only has a cast of supporting players in the Wood. He’ll be tested that Saturday in May. It won’t be a walkover.”

The hardboots remain unconvinced. They point out Honour And Glory is a speed horse, a mile-and-a-sixteenth horse who will think he got caught in a turnstile in the stretch at Churchill.

Of course, that’s what they said about Swaps. Sometimes, those nice little California sprinters sprint all the way to the winners’ circle.