Pulpit Rivals Preach His Praises

At the end of trainer Frank Brothers’ shed row, racing’s next savior stood with his hind quarters facing his public, which at this midmorning hour at Gulfstream Park consisted of a newspaper photographer from a neighboring town and two out-of-state reporters.

“How do you spell your name?” the photographer asked.

Without looking up, blacksmith Tom Wildey continued to file down one of Pulpit’s rear plates.

“That’s W-I-L, D as in dog, E-Y,” Wildey said.

“Shod,” the photographer said. “That’s S-H-O-D, right?”

“Yeah,” Wildey said, still filing away.

“You’re the blacksmith, right?”

“Yeah, the blacksmith.”

“Is that one word or two?”

Wildey’s answer was inaudible.

Brothers, 40, popped in and out of his stable office, and when the phone wasn’t ringing he was using a white towel to shoo flies from the patient Pulpit. Between the shooer and the shoer, Pulpit was getting maximum attention.

“He’s getting new sneakers for Saturday,” Brothers said.

Undefeated, but having run only three times, the handsome, medium-sized Pulpit is the future-book favorite for the Kentucky Derby and the 3-5 morning-line favorite in Saturday’s $500,000 Florida Derby.

The Daily Racing Form’s line lists Pulpit at only 2-5, but at any price, this chocolate-colored colt is the most exciting of a 1994 crop that by any other yardstick is plain vanilla. The Kentucky Derby will be run seven weeks from Saturday, and horsemen from Santa Anita to Gulfstream are hard-pressed to name the No. 2 horse in the class.

“Pulpit’s bred beautiful, he looks beautiful, he trains beautiful and he runs beautiful,” trainer Nick Zito said. “There’s nothing bad you can say about him.”

Zito, winner of the Kentucky Derby in 1991 with Strike The Gold and in 1994 with Go For Gin, will take two shots at Pulpit on Saturday, saddling Acceptable, who is owned in part by George Steinbrenner, and Jack Flash.

“In my position, what can you do?” Zito said. “You just keep paying attention and persevering. Then you hope you’re around if Pulpit ever makes a mistake.”

Every year, it seems, the star-starved sport pins its hopes on one or two horses, and the delivery rate is not high. Cigar delivered for the last two years, but while he was dominating the division for older horses, Unbridled’s Song’s 1996 Derby bid unraveled, and before him, such sure-fire Churchill Downs hits as Holy Bull, Arazi and Easy Goer hit the wall in Louisville.

As for Pulpit, forget about that by-now trite statistic that a Kentucky Derby favorite hasn’t won the race since Spectacular Bid in 1979. Pulpit’s historical handicap is more dated than that. He didn’t run as a 2-year-old, and the only Derby winner in that category has been Apollo in 1882.That’s eighteen-82, the year Chester Arthur was president. Every Derby winner before or since Apollo ran at least one race as a 2-year-old.

The Florida Derby is an excellent feeder race for the Kentucky Derby--Thunder Gulch, Go For Gin, Strike The Gold and Unbridled all leapfrogged from the Gulfstream race to win at Churchill Downs in the last seven years--but sometimes winning here comes with no encore.

For instance, in 1992, trainer Sonny Hine’s Technology was the easiest of Florida Derby winners, and he even won the Tropical Park Derby at Calder a month later, but he was a badly beaten 10th in the Kentucky Derby.

“Technology was a lightly raced colt but at least he had had a couple of races as a 2-year-old,” Hine said this week. “Pulpit is a remarkable horse, and what Frankie Brothers has done with him already is really something, but going into the Triple Crown without any races at 2 is awful tough.”

Pulpit, who was bred by Claiborne, is a son of A.P. Indy, the horse of the year in 1992, and Preach, who was sired by Mr. Prospector, still the holder of Gulfstream’s six-furlong record with his 1:07 4/5 clocking in 1973. A.P. Indy was sired by Seattle Slew, who swept the Triple Crown in 1977.

With that pedigree, Pulpit had every right to win his maiden race, on Jan. 11, by 7 1/2 lengths; win again by 6 3/4 lengths on Feb. 8, then win the Fountain of Youth Stakes, his first start around two turns, by 1 1/2 lengths on Feb. 22. Shane Sellers, who rode Pulpit in all of those races, will be aboard again Saturday.

Brothers signed on as Claiborne’s stable trainer a year ago, and this is the best horse he’s had since Hansel, the beaten favorite in the 1991 Kentucky Derby and then the winner of the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes, the other Triple Crown races.

“Pulpit could very well be the best horse I’ve ever had, but it wouldn’t be fair to compare him to Hansel yet,” Brothers said. “Not off just three races.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

The Draw

The field for Saturday’s $500,000 Florida Derby at Gulfstream Park. All horses carry 122 pounds: *--*

PP Horse Jockey Odds 1. Acceptable Bailey 4-1 2. Pulpit Sellers 2-5 3. Michelle’sallhands Krone 15-1 4. Captain Bodgit Solis 5-1 5. Frisk Me Now King 20-1 6. Jack Flash Perret 20-1 7. Wrightwood Bravo 20-1 8. Hurry The Dance Boulanger 10-1

*--*