Silver Charm Unhurt After Pimlico Mishap

Silver Charm, the Kentucky Derby winner, threw his rider and got loose on the track Thursday morning at Pimlico, where he is preparing to run in the Preakness, the second leg of the Triple Crown, a week from Saturday.

Finishing a gallop around the Baltimore track, Silver Charm stopped suddenly and dumped exercise rider Larry Damore. Before Silver Charm could run off, an alert outrider, Bill Rudolph, grabbed his reins less than a sixteenth of a mile from where Damore had been unseated.

Neither Silver Charm nor Damore was injured.

“I didn’t see it, but it turned out to be no big deal,” said Bob Baffert, who trains Silver Charm. “The horse saw a shadow and got spooked. Cavonnier did the same thing last year. Silver Charm wasn’t running very fast after he got loose. He just trotted over to the outside fence.”

Damore was in good humor after the incident.

“I’ve been thrown by a Breeders’ Cup winner and an Eclipse Award winner,” he said, “but this is the first time I’ve ever been thrown by a Kentucky Derby winner.”

Damore galloped Precisionist, who won the 1985 Breeders’ Cup Sprint and later was voted sprinter of the year in the Eclipse Awards balloting.

Silver Charm’s final workout for the Preakness will be Monday.

Back in Kentucky, where Silver Charm won the Derby last Saturday, Barry Irwin, president of the Team Valor syndicate that races Captain Bodgit, announced that their colt will run in the Preakness. Captain Bodgit, the Derby favorite, couldn’t run down Silver Charm in the stretch at Churchill Downs and lost by a head.

“He recovered well and he shipped well,” Irwin said. “Both our horse and Silver Charm figure to regress a little after such a tough race in the Derby. But they’re better than the other horses, and they should have enough left to make for a real good Preakness.”

Baffert is looking forward to another battle with Captain Bodgit.

“It could be another rivalry like Affirmed and Alydar,” he said. “And that would be great for racing.”

In 1978, Affirmed swept the Triple Crown--he’s the last horse to have won the Derby, the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes--and each of his showdowns with the gritty Alydar was closer than the previous race. The winning margins in the three races were 1 1/2 lengths, a neck and a head.

“I’m all for a great rivalry,” Irwin said. “Just as long as we’re not Alydar in every race.”

A Maryland horse who broke his maiden at Pimlico last August, Captain Bodgit trains at the old Bowie track, about 30 miles south of Baltimore. Trainer Gary Capuano will send the Florida Derby and Wood Memorial winner through his final Preakness workout Tuesday.

“It’s going to be harder to beat Silver Charm at Pimlico than it was in Kentucky,” Capuano said. “There’s a speed bias at Pimlico, and Silver Charm’s got more tactical speed than my horse.”

Irwin agrees, but his outlook brightened when he heard that Richter Scale, the winner of the Derby Trial a week before the Kentucky Derby, was Preakness- bound.

“That colt has some speed,” Irwin said. “We need an honest pace that will give our horse a chance with his late kick.”

A son of Habitony and Devine Pet, a Bel Bolide mare, Richter Scale was a $15,500 yearling purchase at a Del Mar sale. His career--he’s won three of four starts--has been interrupted because of a cracked hoof and a lung infection. The one-mile Derby Trial was his first victory beyond six furlongs.

Free House, the Santa Anita Derby winner who finished third in the Kentucky Derby, 3 1/2 lengths behind Captain Bodgit, will be reunited with Kent Desormeaux in the Preakness. Trainer Paco Gonzalez said he was puzzled by David Flores’ ride in the Derby.

“The last thing I was expecting was to be on the lead,” he said.

Flores said that he found himself in front after a quarter of a mile because no one else wanted the lead. Free House settled into second place behind Pulpit after that, made the lead with a quarter of a mile left and then couldn’t hold off the charge by Silver Charm and Captain Bodgit.

Desormeaux rode Free House to victory in the Santa Anita Derby, then focused on Pacificbounty as his Kentucky Derby horse and was replaced by Flores. Pacificbounty didn’t run at Churchill Downs because of a hoof injury, leaving Desormeaux without a mount.

As many as 12 horses could run in the 1 3/16-mile Preakness, which is 110 yards shorter than the Derby. Here is the tentative lineup, with jockeys:

Silver Charm: Gary Stevens.

Captain Bodgit: Alex Solis.

Free House: Desormeaux.

Concerto: Mike Smith.

Touch Gold: Chris McCarron.

Richter Scale: Shane Sellers.

Ordway: Jerry Bailey.

Frisk Me Now: Eddie King Jr.

Wild Tempest: Joe Bravo.

Droopy Stone: TBA.

Hoxie: TBA.

Jack At The Bank: TBA.

Horse Racing Notes

The Nevada Pari-Mutuel Assn. turned down a proposal by Hollywood Park to end the six-month simulcasting blackout of Southern California races at racebooks in Las Vegas and Reno. Hollywood Park had offered to pay the books commissions of 3 1/2 percent on win, place and show bets and 4% on other bets. The Nevada group approved a deal with Golden Gate Fields, which offered the same commissions as Hollywood Park. That contract must be approved by the California Horse Racing Board and the Thoroughbred Owners of California. “Apparently Nevada’s strategy is to divide and conquer,” said Eual G. Wyatt Jr., general manager of Hollywood Park. . . .

A Matter Of Style, whose eight- race winning streak started in the $8,000 claiming ranks, runs for the first time since Jan. 18 on Saturday at Golden Gate. The 4-year-old gelding is entered in a six-furlong allowance race. . . . Greed Is Good, second in the California Derby, is the 119-pound high-weight Saturday in the $100,000 Will Rogers Handicap at Hollywood Park. Thirteen horses are entered in the one- mile grass race, including King Crimson, Swiss Yodeler, P.T. Indy and Steel Ruhlr.