Vicar Gives Owner Big Reason to Smile for All the Cameras

In the Gulfstream Park winner’s circle, Jim Tafel, the owner of Vicar, was allowing his fellow celebrants to cast him as the fool following Saturday’s Florida Derby.

Somebody mounted jockey Shane Sellers’ blue and yellow riding helmet on Tafel’s head, and he let them take a picture.

Then somebody stuffed a large orchid--the flower for the Florida Derby--in Tafel’s breast pocket, and they took a picture of that too.

Was this any way for a retired magazine publisher from middle America to act? It sure was, because Tafel, 75, admittedly has Kentucky Derby fever, and that excuses the gamut of hijinx.

Tafel only plays the fool on special occasions. He entered the racing and breeding business in 1982, the year before he left publishing. “I paid $260,000 for Vicar as a yearling,” he said. “It’s not the most I’ve ever paid for a horse, but it’s been the best value.”

Tafel and his trainer, Carl Nafzger, took a giant step toward the Kentucky Derby by winning the $750,000 Florida Derby before 29,558. Their rangy colt Vicar survived a slam-bang three-horse finish that left Wondertross second, a nose short at the wire, and Cat Thief third, another half-length back.

There’s a good chance all three will duke it out again, on April 10 in the Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland, which would be their last start before the Kentucky Derby on May 1.

The Vicar camp was confident going into the Florida Derby, Vicar having beaten many of the same horses in the Fountain of Youth Stakes here a month ago, but the public didn’t share this optimism. Vicar went off at $4.60-to-1 in the Fountain of Youth, and his price stayed the same for the Florida Derby. Cat Thief, a close second in the Fountain of Youth, was the 9-5 favorite and even the unaccomplished Wondertross, trained by Nick Zito and owned in part by George Steinbrenner, crowded Vicar in the betting.

About the time Sellers was leaving the jockeys’ room, Vicar was 7-1, and the jockey wondered if he was looking at the right odds for his horse. Vicar was carrying eight more pounds than he did in the last race, but Sellers didn’t think that would matter.

Vicar’s winning time for the Fountain of Youth was the slowest for the stake in 13 years, and his time for 1 1/8 miles Saturday--1:50 4/5--was the slowest on a fast Florida Derby track since Unbridled’s 1:52 in 1990. Nafzger also trained Unbridled, who won the Kentucky Derby and the Breeders’ Cup Classic, so don’t waste his time with talk about slow times.

“The one question we had about Vicar we answered today,” Nafzger said. “That was the question about relaxing behind a few horses. He did that, and it should give him a lot of confidence. But there’s still a long road. All this race proves is that we were the best today. It doesn’t mean that we’ll be the best next week.”

Vicar, a Kentucky-bred son of Wild Again and Escrow Agent, an El Gran Senor mare, won for the fourth time in six starts, his earnings growing to $670,756 with Saturday’s $450,000 victory. He paid $11.20 to win.

Certain finished fourth, beaten by 2 1/4 lengths, and after him came First American, Adonis, Aly’s Alley, Casanova Star, Grits’n Hard Toast and Valid Trefaire. As expected, the filly Three Ring was scratched, after drawing the next-to-outside post.

Valid Trefaire, who broke from the inside, was expected to set the pace, but down the backstretch Cat Thief took over.

Vicar was in fourth place down the backstretch, outside the leaders, and Sellers moved on Cat Thief and Certain near the quarter pole. Wondertross was caught in traffic before his jockey, Jerry Bailey, changed directions to the outside.

Cat Thief, on the fence, surrendered the lead by a head to Vicar with an eighth of a mile to go. They eyeballed one another all the way down the lane, with Wondertross passing Cat Thief a few strides before the wire for second place.

“What a fighter,” Sellers said of Vicar. “I can’t say enough good things about him. He was so relaxed.”

Tafel, who lives in Barrington, Ill., and winters in Florida, won an Eclipse Award with Banshee Breeze, who was voted best 3-year-old filly of 1998.

“This is the highlight for me by far,” Tafel said about the Florida Derby. “If this guy performs like Banshee, Carl and I will be doing cartwheels down the aisle.”

Horse Racing Notes

Gulfstream’s Swale Stakes, a seven-furlong race for 3-year-olds, was won by the Wayne Lukas-trained Yes It’s True, who will continue sprinting. Yes It’s True beat 2-5 Texas Glitter by a head. . . . Garbu, who races for Allen Paulson, ran 1 1/16 miles over Gulfstream’s rock-hard turf course in a record 1:39 1/5 to win the Fort Lauderdale Handicap.