Favorite Doubtful for Derby

Unbridled’s Song, the favorite for Saturday’s Kentucky Derby, became a doubtful starter Tuesday after those in his camp worked overtime to alleviate a foot problem that developed when he won the Wood Memorial on April 13.

Unbridled’s Song, who was found to have an injury to the hoof of his left foreleg after the Wood, went to the track at Churchill Downs near the end of training hours on a windy, bitterly cold morning Tuesday, but did very little, walking with a pony and lightly jogging in the wrong direction for about three-quarters of a mile. His exercise rider, Barry Downes, was aboard.

A scheduled half-mile workout for today has been postponed until at least Thursday.

“It’s a day-to-day thing,” trainer Jim Ryerson said. “I’m happy about the way it went on the track today, and we’re talking optimistically, but if the race was today, we wouldn’t run. If he misses the breeze [Thursday’s workout], we’ll have to consider other options.”

There was much activity over a 24-hour period at Barn 33, where Unbridled’s Song is stabled, removed from most of the 19 other horses that are scheduled to run in Saturday’s 122nd Derby. Late Monday, blacksmith Steve Norman reshod the injured hoof, replacing a protective bar shoe with a Z-bar shoe, which has a Z-shaped bar that runs across the width of the shoe, starting at the open end.

“We’re trying to relieve a tender spot and toughen it up,” Ryerson said. “The shoe he had on before had been aggravating him. The Z-bar shoe gives us more of a chance to get to the problem and make sure there’s no infection.”

Entry time is 5 p.m. today, with a nonrefundable fee of $15,000 due then. It costs another $15,000 to run, but if Unbridled’s Song were entered and then scratched, his owner, Ernie Paragallo, would be refunded the second $15,000. If Unbridled’s Song is entered, Ryerson will have until Saturday to decide about scratching. Paragallo, due here from New York late Tuesday, was given telephone updates Tuesday morning by Buzz Chace, his racing manager.

“If he improves as much in the next 24 hours as he did in the last 24, then you’ll find him entered,” Ryerson said.

If Unbridled’s Song misses the race, the Derby figures to become a wide-open affair. Skip Away, the winner of the Blue Grass Stakes, would be a lukewarm favorite. Other leading contenders are Cavonnier and Alyrob, the 1-2 finishers in the Santa Anita Derby.

Unbridled’s Song’s injury has been described as a “split heel,” or quarter crack. The small hoof crevice has been covered with an acrylic patch, and the charcoal-gray colt was given antibiotics this week to prevent an infection. His foot was wrapped with a white bandage for Tuesday’s exercise.

Quarter cracks are usually not career-threatening, but they can be tricky to treat, because they’re in a difficult, sensitive area that can’t be explored with X-rays.

“No matter what the diagnosis on a quarter crack, it’s only going to be about 50% accurate,” said Carl Nafzger, who trained Unbridled, winner of the 1990 Derby and the sire of Unbridled’s Song and Grindstone, another Derby horse.

One respected Churchill Downs veterinarian, who hasn’t been treating Unbridled’s Song but is familiar with the injury, said that the colt shouldn’t run.

“But of course, this is the Derby, and people are capable of doing anything,” he said. “They’d drop a horse off the twin spires if they thought it’d help him win the race.”

Actually, Unbridled’s Song’s handlers have been very careful about his career, and have an added reason for caution since Paragallo recently signed a breeding agreement with Taylor Made Farm in Nicholasville, Ky. Last year, various minor problems restricted Unbridled’s Song’s campaign, and he was scratched from races four times, one more time than he ran.

Having run only two races, he won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Belmont Park in October, then began this year with two second-place finishes at Gulfstream Park before scoring an eye-opening victory over a good field, including Skip Away and three other Kentucky Derby probable starters, in the Florida Derby.

Northern Dancer, wearing a patched hoof in 1964, ran the fastest Kentucky Derby up to that time. But in 1992, A.P. Indy, the Santa Anita Derby winner, suffered a blind quarter crack and was a race-day scratch here.

“We knew he had one, but we weren’t sure just where,” trainer Neil Drysdale said Tuesday of A.P. Indy. “We worked all night [before the race] trying to get him ready, but we ran out of time.”

A.P. Indy also skipped the Preakness, two weeks after the Derby, but won the Belmont Stakes in June and the Breeders’ Cup Classic in October and was voted horse of the year for ’92.

If Unbridled’s Song doesn’t run, his jockey, Mike Smith, will ride Honour And Glory, one of five horses that trainer Wayne Lukas is running in the Derby. Smith told Lukas that he had no idea whether Unbridled’s Song will run.

“I’ve had 50 or 60 horses get quarter cracks,” said Lukas, whose horses have won the last five Triple Crown races. “If you keep running them, you pay the penalty later. You can be looking at five or six months of down time if you don’t treat them carefully.”

Ryerson has said that Unbridled’s Song would run in regular plates in the Derby, and based on Drysdale’s information, he doesn’t have a choice.

“One thing I’ve always been told is that you don’t use bar shoes in races at Churchill Downs,” Drysdale said. “Most horses slip around when they’re shod that way here.”

If Unbridled’s Song works out with the Z-bar shoe Thursday, he will have to be reshod before the Derby. That extra fiddling with the high-strung colt just before the Derby is not a welcome prospect for Paragallo and company.