Shocking Development Follows

People wondered how Valhol, a colt who had run only twice and not won, could possibly beat more experienced, established horses in last Saturday’s Arkansas Derby.

There might have been an illegal reason. Officials at Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs and members of the Arkansas Racing Commission are suggesting that Valhol’s jockey, Billy Patin, used an electrical device--known around tracks as a battery--to make the 30-1 maiden run faster.

Patin is denying that, and trainer Dallas Keen and owner James Jackson believe him, but an investigation is expected to result in a hearing before the Arkansas commission.

By winning the Arkansas Derby, Valhol vaulted into contention for the Kentucky Derby, to be run on May 1, and Churchill Downs officials can already be heard moaning about the public-relations mess this will create for the 125th running of the race.

Other possible Derby horses can even be affected by developments in Arkansas. This is being billed as one of the most wide-open Derbies in years, and a capacity field of 20 horses is probable. When more than 20 horses want to run, Churchill Downs gives preference to those with the highest earnings in graded stakes. The Arkansas Derby, a Grade II race, was worth $500,000, and payment of Valhol’s $300,000 winner’s share has been withheld. The horses that ran second through fifth will be credited with their money, but their totals would all increase considerably if Valhol were disqualified and moved to last place.

Valhol is already at Churchill Downs and galloped around the track Friday. Keen plans to run him in the Derby--and said early this week that Patin would continue to ride him--but without the $300,000 from Arkansas, the colt’s graded earnings are only $38,400, which won’t be enough money should there be an overflow at the entry box on April 28.

“There is plenty of supportive evidence to show that this horse ran with a battery,” said Terry Wallace, a spokesman for Oaklawn Park.

This evidence has been turned over to the Thoroughbred Racing Protective Bureau, a private investigative agency that works with many tracks. If the TRPB thinks enough of the evidence, it will recommend that the Arkansas Racing Commission conduct a hearing. All of this is not likely to be completed before the Kentucky Derby, and Jackson, who lives near Austin, Tex., has indicated that he’s prepared to appeal and even fight the case in court.

Jackson, who has been in racing for 15 years, mostly with undistinguished horses, bought Valhol for $30,000 as an unraced 2-year-old and reportedly turned down a $2.5-million offer for the colt after he won the Arkansas Derby. Before the Arkansas Derby, at least one outfit, Team Valor of Pasadena, passed on Valhol because an X-ray showed that he had a chip in his knee. The sale price would have been $350,000.

“Three guys [horses] come in that nobody knows about, and they think we must have cheated,” Jackson said. “There were nine races run before ours. Maybe they found somebody else’s toy on the track.”

Oaklawn Park employees found a battery on the track after the Arkansas Derby.

A source close to the Arkansas Racing Commission, who didn’t want his name used, said that close attention should be paid to the ESPN videotape after Valhol crosses the finish line, 4 1/2 lengths ahead of Certain, the second-place finisher. Several people who have watched the tape say that with his left hand still on the reins, Patin drops a dark object, which appears to slide down the horse’s shoulder to the ground.

“I swear to God that I never [had a battery],” Patin told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Keen said that Patin looked him in the eye and said that he didn’t use a battery.

“I believe him,” Keen said. “They better have hard-core evidence, because [Jackson] won’t take this lying down. Billy told me he didn’t do it--no way, no how. This is all too hard to believe. It’s like a nightmare that’s come true.”

Keen, who trained in Southern California for a couple of years and has been the leading trainer at Lone Star Park near Dallas the last two years, said that Valhol is a late-developing horse who has come around at the right time.

Once looked upon as a plodder, Valhol finished second in his first race, at the Fair Grounds in New Orleans on Feb. 12. A month later, Keen threw him into the Louisiana Derby, where he finished a troubled fourth at 107-1.

Valhol raced second for the first half-mile of the Arkansas Derby, took the lead leaving the backstretch and was never threatened.

“This is a legitimate horse,” Keen said. “No electrical device made him win.”

Patin, 36, is a Louisiana jockey who also rides in Texas. He was won fewer than 500 races. Louisiana Racing Commission records indicate that he had substance-abuse problems in the early 1990s and he once was suspended for six months after a third positive drug test.

In California, a jockey caught with an electrical device can expect a year’s suspension, and in Northern California a rider once received a two-year penalty. Last year, Guillermo Gutierrez, a quarter horse jockey at Los Alamitos, was suspended for a year in a battery incident.

“These things can give you quite a jolt,” said Bob Nieto, chief investigator for the California Horse Racing Board. “You’d think you were hit by 110 volts.”