Home Stretch Is a House Call

One of the colt’s owners, John Toffan, calls him “Rubberneck,” because of the horse’s proclivity for surveying the scene when he should be tending to the business at hand.

The pewter-gray gawker with the white face and the bulbous yellow shadowroll is officially registered as Free House, and by any name he was the best there was in the 60th Santa Anita Derby. He beat Silver Charm by a head before 36,625 Saturday, as good a send-off as trainer Paco Gonzalez could hope to have for the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs on May 3.

Free House never does anything routinely, however, and this time what looked like a win by daylight turned into a hairy finish in the final strides.

“He was waiting for the other horse,” Gonzalez said. “He got me worried. This horse has a lot of ability, and he hasn’t given us everything he’s got yet.”

Like the dutiful owner he is, Toffan has a remedy for Free House in Louisville.

“He’ll have to wait to pass horses in the Derby,” he said with a smile. “We’ll have to make sure he doesn’t go to the lead too early.”

The Santa Anita Derby produced at least one other Kentucky Derby probable in Silver Charm, and even the filly, Sharp Cat, who finished sixth as the narrow 2-1 favorite, might seek redemption at Churchill Downs. Sharp Cat, breaking from the inside post position, was bothered by Hello, an unwilling loader in the adjoining stall, and trainer Wayne Lukas’ filly nudged her door open, delaying the start for a few seconds. Then Sharp Cat and Silver Charm engaged in a debilitating speed duel that carried them through the first mile in 1:34 2/5, fastest ever for the race.

Hello finished third in the $750,000 race, two lengths behind Silver Charm and a nose in front of Steel Ruhlr, a 63-1 shot. Carmen’s Baby, finishing fifth at 62-1, was vanned off the track after the race. The colt ruptured the suspensory ligaments in his left foreleg, an injury not believed to be life- threatening.

Coupled with his stablemate Bagshot, who finished eighth, Free House paid $16.60 as the fourth choice, completing the 1 1/8 miles in 1:47 3/5. The time missed the stakes record, shared by Lucky Debonair (1965) and Sham (1973), by three-fifths of a second. Only one other horse, Hill Rise in 1964, has run a Santa Anita Derby faster.

A son of Smokester and Fountain Lake, horses that both Toffan and his partner, Trudy McCaffery, raced, Free House is the second consecutive California-bred to win the Santa Anita Derby and the 13th overall. “Those Cal-breds are tough--never throw them out,” said trainer Bob Baffert, who was first in the Santa Anita Derby and second in the Kentucky Derby with Cavonnier last year.

It is no small consolation to Baffert that even though his Silver Charm was beaten by Free House for the second time in three weeks, he will return to Kentucky with a loaded gun.

“We went toe to toe with the mare [Sharp Cat] and then Silver Charm still came back at the end,” Baffert said. “My horse should really be fit now. We shouldn’t have been up there with that pace, but I told Gary [Stevens] beforehand that he better put our horse in the race. I had a lot of respect for the mare, and I didn’t want her to be cruising out there.”

Kent Desormeaux, who had never won a Santa Anita Derby, rode Free House, taking over after David Flores, who won the San Felipe with the colt, went to Arkansas for a second-place ride aboard Isitingood in the $750,000 Oaklawn Handicap. Desormeaux won the Norfolk last year with Free House, but had also seen him up close in two sorry performances after that.

“I call him a good bad boy,” Desormeaux said, “because he’s attitude-cocky. He’s a multitalented horse, but he gets bored. Today, he went to the lead right now, but then he was saying, ‘My job’s done.’ I never thought he was going to get beat, though. He sensed when the other horse got up to our neck, and wasn’t going to let him by.”

It was unclear late Saturday whether Desormeaux would ride Free House in Kentucky. He is scheduled to ride Pacificbounty, another Derby candidate, in the Arkansas Derby on Saturday. Free House’s camp is likely to press him into a decision about their colt before then.

Free House won for the fourth time in nine starts and earned $450,000, sending his purses over the $800,000 mark. He will get Toffan, McCaffery and Gonzalez back to Kentucky for the first time since Mane Minister, who finished third in the 1991 Derby and went right on finishing third in the other Triple Crown races as well.

“We’re dealing with a different horse now,” McCaffery said. “This horse, we felt that every race he would improve and get better. I remember last summer when the horse was just coming to the racetrack and John and I both said to Paco that this might be a Kentucky Derby horse. That was eight months ago and here we are.”

In a battle of grays, Silver Charm beat Free House the first time they met, in the San Vicente Stakes on Feb. 8. Stevens rode Silver Charm for the first time Saturday.

“He ran unbelievably,” Stevens said. “He was cruising, but no matter how much you’re cruising, with those fractions he had every right to cave in. He was tired inside the sixteenth pole, but he was coming back and I thought I was going to get back. Kent’s colt ran a big race and it was just a hell of a race.”

Horse Racing Notes

King Crimson was scratched from the Santa Anita Derby and will run Saturday in the Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland. . . . Glitter Woman, a filly who was a late nominee to the Triple Crown, won the $543,750 Ashland at Keeneland by 6 1/2 lengths over Anklet. She has won her last four starts by 32 1/2 lengths and trainer Shug McGaughey must decide whether to run her in the Kentucky Derby or the Kentucky Oaks the day before.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

SANTA ANITA DERBY

3629 SIXTH RACE. 1 1/8 miles. Santa Anita Derby (Grade I) Three-year-olds. Purse $750,000.*--*

Horse and Jockey PP 1/2 3/4 Str. Free House, Desormeaux 4 3-1 3-1/2 3-2 Silver Charm, Stevens 3 2-2 1/2 2-2 1/2 1-1/2 Hello, McCarron 2 6-2 1/2 5-1/2 4-1 1/2 Steel Ruhlr, Blanc 8 10 7-3 6-4 Carmen’s Baby, Almeida 10 4-1/2 4-1 1/2 5-hd Sharp Cat, Nakatani 1 1-hd 1-hd 2-hd P.T. Indy, R.Davis 6 8-1 1/2 9 1/2 8-5 Bagshot, J.Garcia 7 9-1 10 9-2 1/2 Swiss Yodeler, Douglas 9 5-3 6-4 1/2 7-hd Classic Credential, Solis 5 7-2 1/2 8-1 10

Horse and Jockey Fin. To $1 Free House, Desormeaux 1-hd 7.30 Silver Charm, Stevens 2-2 2.10 Hello, McCarron 3-no 3.70 Steel Ruhlr, Blanc 4-3 63.20 Carmen’s Baby, Almeida 5-1/2 62.00 Sharp Cat, Nakatani 6-3 1/2 2.00 P.T. Indy, R.Davis 7-4 1/2 10.70 Bagshot, J.Garcia 8-1 3/4 7.30 Swiss Yodeler, Douglas 9-4 41.00 Classic Credential, Solis 10 14.40

*--*

Scratched--King Crimson

31--FREE HOUSE (A ENTRY): 16,606003.4024--SILVER CHARM 3.60: 2.80

13--HELLO: 3.40

Time--22.0, 45.0, 1.09.0, 1.34 2/5, 1.47 3/5. Cloudy & Fast. Winner--grr.c.3 Smokester--Fountain Lake. Trained by Paco Gonzalez. Owned by McCaffery & Toffan. Mutuel pool--$1,811,804.40. Exacta pool--$1,009,667. Quinella pool--$124,370. Trifecta pool--$940,766. Pick Three pool--$136,511.

$1 Exacta (1-4) paid $21.70

$2 Quinella (1-4) paid $18.20

$1 Pick three (6/4/1) paid $221.90

$1 Trifecta (1-4-3) paid $90.50