Femmes Fatales

In Florida a few weeks ago, the conversation among trainers turned to this year’s California contingent of Kentucky Derby prospects.

” . . . And then there’s those fillies out there,” said Carl Nafzger, who has won a Derby--with Unbridled in 1990--and who has a leading candidate in Vicar this year. “If any other trainer had that filly Honest Lady, you’d say the guy was crazy. But she runs for a guy like Bobby Frankel, so you have to pay attention.”

The seven-horse field for Saturday’s Santa Anita Derby will have to pay attention, because Honest Lady, or possibly High Wire Act, probably will set the pace in the $750,000 race, California’s final important prep for the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs on May 1. In 61 runnings, only three fillies have won the Santa Anita Derby, and the last of those, Winning Colors in 1988, went on to further glory, giving trainer Wayne Lukas his first of three Kentucky Derby victories.

The idea of fillies beating colts is foreign, so to speak, in this country, whereas in Europe, females are more likely to show up in races outside their division. For instance, the Arc de Triomphe, France’s most prestigious race, has been won several times by distaffers.

By contrast, the Kentucky Derby has been won only three times by fillies, none since Winning Colors. In the Breeders’ Cup, first run in 1984, fillies have won only in the six-furlong Sprint, three times, or in the grass races, all six of those winners having been European shippers.

In 1982, two years after Genuine Risk became the first filly since Regret in 1915 to win the Kentucky Derby, another filly, Cupecoy’s Joy, led the race for a mile before finishing 10th.

“Fillies are able to compete against colts more in sprints than distance races like the Derby,” said trainer Eddie Gregson, whose Gato Del Sol won that ’82 Derby. “A fast horse is a fast horse. But in big fields going a distance, there’s always the jostling and bumping factors that work against fillies. The fillies that have done the best against colts over the years are the strong, brutish types. Winning Colors was that type of filly.”

Honest Lady is not the only filly who might show up at Churchill Downs this year. Bob Baffert, who has won the last two Kentucky Derbies with colts, Silver Charm and Real Quiet, trains Silverbulletday and Excellent Meeting, who have continued winning, while avoiding mixed company, since their 1-2 finish in last November’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies at Churchill Downs. And Three Ring, who was scratched from the Florida Derby because of an outside post position, will be shipped from Florida to Kentucky on April 22 to run in the Derby.

“These four fillies are really hickory,” said Barry Schwartz, who owns Three Ring. “We ran third [behind Baffert’s fillies] in the Breeders’ Cup, and that was after running the entire race on a dead rail, which wasn’t the best place to be.”

Neither Three Ring nor Honest Lady is a robust filly. They are just average-size horses. But Frankel, after Vicar had won the Florida Derby in a slow time, said that Three Ring would have won the Gulfstream Park race had she run.

Instead of throwing his fillies in against the colts, Baffert is running them against other fillies this weekend, Excellent Meeting shipping to Oaklawn Park for Friday’s Fantasy and Silverbulletday going to Keeneland for Saturday’s Ashland Stakes.

Mike Pegram, who owns Real Quiet, winner of last year’s Kentucky Derby, would prefer to run his filly, Silverbulletday, in the Kentucky Oaks at Churchill Downs the day before the Derby. But it’s still possible that Baffert will enter his two fillies in both the Oaks and the Derby, then pick the race based on caliber of opposition, post positions and pace scenarios.

“This is a year of exceptional fillies,” said Frankel, who was voted into the Racing Hall of Fame in 1995. “I didn’t train Honest Lady as well as I should have for the last race. I can’t blame the ride [by Kent Desormeaux]. My filly showed a lot of courage, considering what she had to do early in the race.”

A daughter of Seattle Slew, Honest Lady is out of Toussaud, who in 1993 became the first female in 25 years to win the American Handicap at Hollywood Park. Bred and owned by Prince Khalid Abdullah’s Juddmonte Farms, Honest Lady beat fillies in her first two starts before finishing fifth--but beaten by only a length--when Desert Hero won the one-mile San Rafael Stakes at Santa Anita on Feb. 28.

Honest Lady dueled with Patrick’s Exit, a 99-1 shot who finished last, through an opening half-mile that took only 45 4/5 seconds. Honest Lady races with blinkers, which can add speed to horses, so for Saturday’s race Frankel will open the cups to about half of what they were before. The Santa Anita Derby is an eighth of a mile longer than the San Rafael.

Besides Winning Colors, the other successful females in the Santa Anita Derby have been Ciencia, an easy winner in 1939, and Silver Spoon, who was the favorite in 1959. Neither Ciencia nor the 13 horses she beat went on to the Kentucky Derby, one of only three years that the Santa Anita Derby hasn’t produced at least one runner for Kentucky.

In 1959, the Santa Anita Derby was run almost two months before the Kentucky Derby, necessitating a race in between, and trainer Bob Wheeler chose a seven-furlong test at Churchill a week before the Derby.

Though the race drew only five horses, it was not an easy spot, with Sword Dancer and Easy Spur, who were also Derby-bound, in the field. Sword Dancer won and favored Silver Spoon finished third.

“Silver Spoon was long and lanky, she reminded me a lot of Citation that way,” said her jockey, Ray York, 65, who’s living on his small farm in Taft, Calif. “She was a long-striding filly who wasn’t that easy to ride. At the end of the race, my saddle would be about 10 inches farther back than when we started.

“Bob Wheeler was a great trainer, and especially a guy who knew what to do with fillies, but the seven-eighths race didn’t get Silver Spoon tight enough for the Kentucky Derby. We got close in the stretch, but then the leaders pulled away.”

Silver Spoon finished fifth, beaten by less than four lengths. York, who had won the 1954 Kentucky Derby with Determine, never rode Silver Spoon again.

“I don’t know what I did wrong,” he said recently. “You know how it is. A horse gets beat and they do away with the jockey.”

In her next start, with Bill Boland riding, Silver Spoon beat the boys by about five lengths in the Cinema Handicap at Hollywood Park. Off the board that day was Tomy Lee, who had won the Kentucky Derby.

SANTA ANITA DERBY

Probable starters for Saturday’s race:

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Horse Jockey Trainer Capsized Solis Lewis Charismatic TBA Lukas Desert Hero Nakatani Mandella General Challenge Stevens Baffert High Wire Act McCarron Shirreffs Honest Lady Desormeaux Frankel Prime Timber Flores Baffert

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Running With the Boys

How fillies have finished in the Santa Anita Derby:

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YEAR HORSE FINISH 1935 Pantoufle 4 Ann O’Ruley 7 Toro Nancy 10 1936 Gold Seeker 3 1937 Brown Jade 4 1939 Ciencia 1 Sweet Nancy 6 1945 Busher 2 1946 Honeymoon 3 1947 U Time 6 Hubble Bubble 8 1950 Fleet Rings 9 1951 Nothirdchance 8 Greek Pass 11 1959 Silver Spoon 1 1960 Darling June 8 1961 Fun House 14 1962 Lincoln Center 13 1979 Terlingua 5 1984 Life’s Magic 5 1988 Winning Colors 1 1993 Eliza 3 1997 Sharp Cat 6

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