Feldman Suddenly Knee-Deep in Success

Asked about his age, Dave Feldman, the legendary turf writer and handicapper for the Chicago Sun-Times, says: “I’m 83 and a half, going on a hundred.”

Age has never stopped Feldman from leading with his chin. A few days after Behaviour, a 7-year-old English-bred who makes up his one-horse stable, won the $100,000 Appleton Handicap at Gulfstream Park, one publication referred to Feldman as a millionaire. “Let me tell you something,” said Feldman, who is always starting his sentences with let-me-tell-you-something, “they’re right.”

John Sullivan, who worked for Feldman’s stable years ago in Chicago, might have gone to Florida to train Behaviour. In early December, Feldman called Sullivan at Santa Anita and said: “How many horses you got?”

“Two,” Sullivan said. “Maybe two and a half. How many you got?”

“One,” Feldman said. “But let me tell you something. He can run.”

“That’s an awful long way to go for one horse,” said Sullivan, still smiling about the conversation.

Feldman told Sullivan that he’d leave him in his will and hired Marty Wolfson, a Florida trainer.

Feldman once trained his horses, while still writing and handicapping, and he was even the track announcer at Sportsman’s Park for 32 years. He says as a teenager he was hanging around the Chicago newspapers and met Damon Runyon, and he also says he used to run bets for Buck Weaver, the third baseman in the Chicago Black Sox scandal. Feldman is as Runyonesque as Nicely-Nicely Johnson and Nathan Detroit ever were.

Feldman first saw Behaviour run on television at the Mud Bug, a Chicago OTB parlor. The Mud Bug is where Feldman threw his own 80th birthday party a few years ago. Feldman put on a tuxedo, but his friends were more informal. A few trainers from Arlington showed up with a horse, who almost ended the soiree. The animal couldn’t get any traction on the floor and skidded all over the place. The furniture bill ran more than the tab for the liquor.

Last summer, after Feldman watched some of Behaviour’s races from Churchill Downs, he sent $100,000 to a trainer there, Dave Vance, and on June 17 he told him to claim the horse out of his account. Running for a $50,000 tag, Behaviour won with a 1:35 3/4 mile, as an ecstatic Feldman told everybody at the Mud Bug that this was now his horse.

The next day, Vance told Feldman that he hadn’t made the claim. “That horse has a knee [problem],” Vance said. Actually, the horse had the two requisite knees, but one was twice as big as the other.

Behaviour won again, 11 days later, but he ran seventh at Saratoga in July and then trainer Elliott Walden lost him in August on a $100,000 claim. By September, Behaviour’s losing streak had reached four races, one defeat by 19 1/2 lengths.

Death-wish Feldman still wanted the horse. He called Barry Golden, the owner, and offered him $102,000.

“I’m a millionaire,” Golden said. “I don’t need the extra $2,000.”

Fellow millionaire Feldman paid the full $102,000 anyway and shipped Behaviour to trainer Steve Asmussen in Chicago. For Asmussen, Behaviour ran three times at Hawthorne, winning once. Feldman winters in Florida, so he vanned his horse there with another trainer, Jim Gulick.

By the time Behaviour reached South Florida, Feldman had lined up Wolfson. On Dec. 19, at Calder, Behaviour missed by half a length. Feldman, who has a heart condition, heard the call of the race from his hospital bed in Chicago.

Two weeks later, Feldman was in Florida for the Appleton. “It rained buckets,” he said. “The morning of the race they . . . told me that if I stay in I’ve only got three horses to beat. I wanted to scratch, but I didn’t, and then when I get to the track I find out I’ve got five to beat. I never screamed so loud at a race in my life. ‘Go, Shane, go Shane,’ I kept yelling. Shane Sellers and me are like father and son. I went down after the race and gave him a big hug. Got mud all over me. I became a mudder, there’s a line for you.”

Feldman said that he’s resurrected at least five horses from the claiming ranks and won stakes with them.

His favorite is Old Frankfort, claimed for $10,000 and winner of the Stars and Stripes Handicap at Arlington in 1978.

He hasn’t made any money on his investment in Behaviour. “I’m about $30,000 from getting out [breaking even],” Feldman said.

Behaviour is scheduled to run on Jan. 23 in the Canadian Turf Handicap, another $100,000 race at Gulfstream.

Asked what Wolfson thinks about Behaviour, Feldman says:

“He says the horse has still got that knee. He says he could hang his hat on it.”