Strong Odds, or Long Odds?

Shortly before the horses were loaded into the gate for the 1977 Kentucky Derby, Mickey Taylor, one of the owners of Seattle Slew, turned to Albert Finney, his seatmate at Churchill Downs, and said, “There’s nothing like coming to the Derby with a 4-5 shot.”

In the closing minutes of betting, Seattle Slew was hammered down to 1-2, an even bigger favorite, and then he won impressively, as a 1-2 shot should, en route to a sweep of the Triple Crown. But those were the predictable 1970s for the Derby, when Spectacular Bid, Foolish Pleasure, Cannonade, Secretariat and Riva Ridge also were favored and won.

In fact, after Spectacular Bid’s victory here in 1979, the Derby tally on favorites stood at 48 winners in 105 runnings, a formidable .457 percentage. Nationally, for all races, favorites win about 33% of the time.

But since Spectacular Bid, the Derby has run into the fickle 1980s and the impossible 1990s. Sixteen consecutive favorites have turned turtle, and now only 39.6% of the favorites have won the Derby.

It’s as though the other horses carry the traditional Derby weight of 126 pounds and the favorite must shoulder 135. And into this web steps Unbridled’s Song, who will be heavily favored Saturday in the 122nd Derby. The son of Unbridled, himself an upset Derby winner, Unbridled’s Song appears to have the 19 other horses by the throat. He won last year’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, and in his last two starts has won the Florida Derby and the Wood Memorial, two of the major Derby preps.

But despite those credentials, there are growing doubts that Unbridled’s Song will break the favorites’ hex in the Derby. The race has a capacity field for the first time since 1984, so with four victories and two seconds in seven starts, and earnings of $1.2 million, Unbridled’s Song hasn’t chased anybody off.

His rivals are telling themselves that the charcoal-gray colt is going backward, because his victory in the Wood, by less than two lengths over the fast-closing In Contention, a colt with no important stakes victories, was not as impressive as a 5 3/4-length triumph in the Florida Derby a month earlier.

Other trainers also cite Unbridled’s Song’s rabbit ears. He apparently hears everything and can get rattled before a race. He almost dumped his jockey, Mike Smith, in the Wood Memorial post parade. Saturday’s crowd, at more than 100,000, will be five or six times as big as the Wood’s.

The newest doubt is “the foot.” No one outside the horse’s camp said anything about it until last Saturday, when the colt went out for a morning gallop wearing a protective bar shoe on his left front. A bar shoe, which consists of a bar across the width of the shoe, is usually worn to support the cushy frog section and the heel of the foot.

“Thinking about it puts a knot in your stomach,” said Jim Ryerson, who trains Unbridled’s Song.

Ryerson said Unbridled’s Song split his heel during the running of the Wood at Aqueduct on April 13. Part of the heel was carved away and the injury was drained. There was a lot of bleeding and there was the fear that the hoof could get infected. The area has been covered with an acrylic patch.

Unbridled’s Song, who has missed no training, worked last Wednesday, going six furlongs on a sloppy track in 1:14 4/5.

“What we wanted to do was test him, and he galloped out a mile fine,” Ryerson said. “We hope the problem is behind us.”

But it’s not. Horses run races in bar shoes, but it’s dicey trying a horse for the first time with new equipment in the Derby, and Ryerson plans to run Unbridled’s Song in his regular shoes.

“You don’t know how a horse would run in a bar shoe,” Ryerson said. “They could slip around, and not be able to get any traction.”

Unbridled’s Song is scheduled to have one more workout before Saturday--at half a mile Wednesday--and then he and the colt’s owner, Ernie Paragallo, must decide when to change the shoe.

Ryerson, 43, has run one horse in the Derby, finishing 11th with Meadow Flight in 1994.

“Who knows why favorites do so badly,” he said. “The size of the fields probably has something to do with it. There are a number of preps, so the horses use different ways to get here. They don’t hook up until the Derby, so the public doesn’t know how to handicap them. There have also been some false favorites, horses that went off favored but shouldn’t have. It’s also the first time any of these horses have run a mile and a quarter.”

Chris McCarron, who will be participating in his 14th Derby when he rides Cavonnier, the Santa Anita Derby winner, has won with Alysheba and Go For Gin, neither of which was favored.

“The surface has a lot to do with who wins,” McCarron said. “Some horses adapt to it more than others. The added distance is also a factor. And a horse’s demeanor is important. How they handle the crowd is important.”

Some of the beaten Derby favorites in the last 16 years had physical excuses, others apparently merely happened to perform poorly on their biggest days. In 1987, Demons Begone hemorrhaged from the nose and was pulled up on the backstretch by Pat Day, whose silks were covered with blood. Three years later, Mister Frisky, who went into the Derby undefeated in 16 races, was eighth here, third in the Preakness two weeks later and then almost died of an orange-sized tumor in his stomach. His trainer, the late Laz Barrera, theorized that he wasn’t 100% when he ran in the Derby.

Other beaten favorites went on to distinguish themselves:

--Chief’s Crown won the Travers and beat older horses in the Marlboro Cup, finishing the year with $1.2 million in purses.

--Snow Chief won the Preakness and the Jersey Derby, was voted an Eclipse Award as best 3-year-old colt, and won major races as a 4-year-old.

--Easy Goer, thwarted by Sunday Silence both in the Derby and the Preakness, spoiled that rival’s Triple Crown bid by winning the Belmont Stakes.

--Hansel won the Preakness and the Belmont and earned an Eclipse Award.

--Prairie Bayou won the Preakness, but broke down and was destroyed in the Belmont before he was voted an Eclipse.

--Holy Bull skipped the other Triple Crown races, but won the Travers and mopped up on older horses late in the year, winning horse-of-the-year honors.

--Last year, Timber Country won the Preakness, and his Derby entrymate, Serena’s Song, was voted best 3-year-old filly.

“I’d rather be favored and take my chances,” Ryerson said. “Favorites usually win one out of three races over the long haul. If you’re running 4-1 or 5-1 shots all the time, you’re not even going to win one out of three. When I was growing up, I used to like to be the underdog, because if you won at anything, that made it even sweeter. But not anymore. I like the idea of having the horse that might break the slump.”

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It Doesn’t Pay to Be the Favorite

The beaten favorites and the horses that beat them in the last 16 runnings of the Kentucky Derby:

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Year Favorite (Finish) Odds 1980 Rockhill Native (5th) 2-1 1981 Entry of Proud Appeal (16th), Golden Derby (21st) 2-1 1982 Air Forbes Won (7th) 5-2 1983 Entry of Marfa (5th)-Balboa Native (9th) 2-1 and Total Departure (20th) 1984 Entry of Life’s Magic (8th)-Althea (19th) 5-2 1985 Chief’s Crown (3rd) 6-5 1986 Snow Chief (11th) 2-1 1987 Demons Begone (Pulled Up) 2-1 1988 *Private Terms (9th) 3-1 1989 Entry of Easy Goer (2nd)-Awe Inspiring (3rd) 4-5 1990 Mister Frisky (8th) 19-10 1991 Hansel (10th) 5-2 1992 Arazi (8th) 9-10 1993 Prairie Bayou (2nd) 4-1 1994 Holy Bull (12th) 2-1 1995 Entry of Timber Country (3rd)-Serena’s Song (16th) 3-1

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Year Winner Odds 1980 Genuine Risk 13-1 1981 Pleasant Colony 7-2 1982 Gato Del Sol 21-1 1983 Sunny’s Halo 5-2 1984 Swale 3-1 1985 Spend A Buck 4-1 1986 Ferdinand 17-1 1987 Alysheba 8-1 1988 Winning Colors 3-1 1989 Sunday Silence 3-1 1990 Unbridled 10-1 1991 Strike The Gold 9-2 1992 Lil E. Tee 16-1 1993 Sea Hero 12-1 1994 Go For Gin 9-1 1995 Thunder Gulch 24-1

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* There was $4,374 more bet on Private Terms than Winning Colors, making Private Terms the favorite.