Looking for a Jewel? Go See This Cal-Bred

Free House, a big, gangling, gray galoot without a care in the world won the first leg of the 1997 Quadruple Crown on Saturday at Santa Anita.

What’s that? you say to yourself. The what crown?!

Well, now, everyone’s heard of the Triple Crown--the Kentucky, Derby, Preakness and Belmont. “Jewels” of the Triple Crown, I believe they are referred to. The sequence of spring challenges that decide whether a horse belongs in a hall of fame or on a bridle path.

Well, what have they done for 3-year-old racing the Santa Anita Derby hasn’t?

You measure a race by its importance stacked up against the established all-star events. If so, match the Santa Anita Derby around New York.

Eight Santa Anita Derby winners have gone on to win the Kentucky. Six have gone on to win the Preakness and three have won the Belmont.

But, that’s only the winners. Once, a horse who finished 13th at Santa Anita won the Kentucky. Another time, a horse who finished ninth at Santa Anita finished first at the Preakness. Altogether, nine Santa Anita starters have won the Preakness. And 11 have won the Kentucky Derby. And, once, a horse who finished second at Santa Anita won the Preakness and the Belmont.

OK, so 15 Kentucky Derby winners have gone on to win the Preakness and 11 to win the Belmont. But the Kentucky Derby has been run since 1875 and the Preakness since 1873. The Santa Anita Derby has only been run since 1936.

Free House, then, faces a daunting challenge. To begin with, he’s a California-bred race horse. You know how many Cal-breds have won the Kentucky Derby in 122 runnings? Three.

You heard me. About one every half-century.

Free House is also a gray. You know how many grays have won the Kentucky Derby? Three.

The Cal-breds were Morvich, Swaps and Decidedly. And Decidedly hit the jackpot parlay: He was both gray and Cal-bred.

If history seems against Free House, he’s the last one to worry about it. Free House, you see, is a typical Californian. He doesn’t worry about a thing. Everything’s cool, man.

He doesn’t know history’s stacked against him. They have trouble keeping him focused. He has the attention span of the typical California teenager. He’s bad at homework. He goofs in workouts. Even in the post parade, his mind isn’t on his work. He’s gawking like a tourist, he’s checking the crowd like a pickpocket. You’re almost afraid he’ll run the wrong way. A four-legged Roy Riegels.

You get the feeling if he were human you’d have trouble getting him to keep his room clean and he’d probably ride around in a truck with the radio turned on too loud to the Eagles or something. His grades would leave something to be desired. But he’d probably have a good jump shot.

He’s a good athlete, but even here he has been known to waste his talents. He ran seventh at Golden Gate once. No one knows why. Just sort of lost interest.

The good news is, he loves to run. In a race, against fast horses, that is. Works and gallops kind of bore him, but put other horses in there and he gets his game face on.

He’s not a gym fighter. But neither was Dempsey. And his trainer, Paco Gonzalez, knows when the flag is dropped, Free House is serious enough. He’ll never be Secretary of State, but you wouldn’t want to shoot craps with him.

His record is not a model of consistency. But one of his owners, Trudy McCaffery, said she knew in the paddock Saturday this was one of those days when Free House was all business.

“I could tell he was really feeling good about himself,” McCaffery said. “He’s like a big kid, but he’s growing up.”

You could say he’s a gold mine, but his owner, John Toffan, already has one of those. Toffan is the last of the 49ers--not the team, the gold-rushers. He found his gold in Alaska in the late 1980s over a century after Sutter’s Mill. Unlike the original miner-49ers who put their money in the Barbary Coast night life, Toffan put his in fast horses.

Free House is one of them. But, has Toffan got a Quadruple Crown winner? Well, he’s a quarter of the way there.

Free House’s race Saturday was hardly a romp. He forced the early pace resolutely behind the filly Sharp Cat and the determined Silver Charm, who ran blistering fractions all the way to the stretch, running a 1:09 three-quarters and a 1:34 2/5 mile. The 1:47 3/5 finish was within a tick of the stakes record of 1:47. For all his playboy image, Free House can run some.

He wouldn’t let Silver Charm by when that rival refused to quit and came on again at the wire. He was what someone once said of John Longden: “You can get to him. You can’t get by him.”

The race did credit to both Free House and Silver Charm. It was the third time in the past three races they ran 1-2 and Free House has won two of them. It’s hardly Affirmed-Alydar, Secretariat-Sham or even Dempsey-Tunney. But it may be before they’re through.

So, California has a gleam in the eye. The gold miner’s son, so to speak, is the best in the West. He has a little growing up to do, but that could be said of a lot of Cal-breds--human as well as equine. Anyway, the home stretch at Churchill Downs will do that to you in a hurry.