Drysdale Takes the Long Route

Next Wednesday, Fusaichi Pegasus will be rousted from his stall at Hollywood Park and put on a plane for New York. If the colt doesn’t get there in record time, Kentucky Derby linemakers everywhere will want to know why.

Since he was sold for $4 million at a yearling auction--the highest price at Keeneland in 13 years--Fusaichi Pegasus has been highly scrutinized and prematurely lionized. The Daily Racing Form listed him fourth on its list of Derby contenders in early March, two weeks before he ran in his first stakes race. When he won that race--the San Felipe Stakes at Santa Anita--by less than a length, Fusaichi Pegasus shot up to No. 1 on the list.

The scary thing is that Fusaichi Pegasus might be as good as the ballyhoo. He’s a big, muscular specimen. Nobody’s done a measurement, but Fusaichi Pegasus runs as if he’s got a big heart, and he has a natural up-close running style that’s usually a prerequisite in the crowded Kentucky Derby fields.

He lost by a neck in his first start--the name of the first-place horse, David Copperfield, will take on a life of its own if Fusaichi Pegasus goes on to greatness--and in three subsequent races, all since Kent Desormeaux took over as his jockey, the son of Mr. Prospector has made no mistakes.

In another sport, the old question, “What’s he done lately?” would be apropos. In racing, the bigger question is, “How will he do out of town?”

Even though California-based horses--Charismatic, Real Quiet, Silver Charm and Grindstone--have won the last four Derbies, West Coast colts still get the fisheye until they’ve proven something over Eastern tracks. Look at General Challenge. Winner of the Strub and the Santa Anita Handicap this winter, he’s considered the best older horse in training. Yet the next time he leaves California, many handicappers will not embrace him because of his bombs on the road.

Two weeks from today and three weeks before the Derby, Fusaichi Pegasus will not only try his act out of town, he’ll be on display in New York.

It’s an intriguing plan that Neil Drysdale, Fusaichi Pegasus’ buttoned-down trainer, has mapped out. He could have kept his colt at home, and run him in the Santa Anita Derby next Saturday. That would have been over a track that the horse obviously thrives on.

Or, he could have sent him to Lexington, Ky., for Keeneland’s Blue Grass Stakes on the same day as the Wood. A horse runs at Keeneland and he’s only 70 miles from Churchill Downs.

Instead, Drysdale chose the Wood, which at 1 1/8 miles--an eighth of a mile shorter than the Derby--is the same distance as the remaining preps. The Aqueduct race used to be synonymous with ensuing success in the Kentucky Derby, but no more. In the 1970s, Derby winners Secretariat, Foolish Pleasure, Bold Forbes and Seattle Slew emerged from the Wood, but the race, run then only two weeks before the Derby, fell out of fashion with many trainers, whose approach to the Derby changed.

Go For Gin, second in the Wood in 1994, also won the Derby, but he was the first Derby winner to come out of the race since Pleasant Colony, who bagged the New York-Kentucky double in 1981. Today’s Wood doesn’t even have Grade I status--in that respect, it’s on a par with the Louisiana and Arkansas Derbies among the Kentucky Derby preps--and Aqueduct is dangling a $250,000 carrot ($150,000 for the owner, the rest for the trainer) to try to stir up some horses. The bonus will be paid if a horse wins the Wood and the Derby. The Wood’s purse alone is $750,000.

Aqueduct is fortunate to have drawn Fusaichi Pegasus, who despite his pedigree, sales price and racing record will not scare many horses away. He’s a California horse, after all, with an act that may or may not play out of town.

Red Bullet, owned by Frank Stronach, is lightly raced but undefeated, and after winning the Gotham at Aqueduct on March 19, has remained in New York. Red Bullet is likely to be longer in the Wood’s odds--third choice, probably--than Fusaichi Pegasus and Aptitude, another West Coast shipper who came within two strides of running down Stronach’s colt in the Gotham.

Drysdale had two reasons--the timing of the race and War Chant--for not running Fusaichi Pegasus in the Santa Anita Derby. The Wood gives Fusaichi Pegasus an extra week after the San Felipe, and War Chant, who’s No. 2 on the Racing Form’s Derby list, is a lighter-coupled colt, less likely, in Drysdale’s opinion, to acclimate to the deeper Eastern running surfaces.

After Fusaichi Pegasus arrives in New York, Drysdale will be more focused on the barometer than the stopwatch. He’s hoping for a fast track on April 15, and even has contingency plans to ship the horse over to Lexington for the Blue Grass, should the weather forecast be especially foul for the Wood.

Even without Fusaichi Pegasus, the Blue Grass will be a deep race. The field will include Hal’s Hope and High Yield, the 1-2 finishers in the Florida Derby, and Mighty and More Than Ready, who were 1-2 in the Louisiana Derby.

Horse Racing Notes

Hugh Hefner, racing for the first time since his 13th-place finish in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, will run on grass for the first time in Sunday’s $75,000 La Puente Stakes at Santa Anita. Also in the field for the one-mile race are Final Row, Grey Memo, Long Term Investment, Purely Cozzene, Sign Of Fire and Tender Offer.