Putting Critics in Their Place

Hey, you guys at Churchill Downs, you’re going to get a kick out of this one.

There’s a lady who might make some news at your track on the first Saturday in May. I’m not talking about Wayne Lukas’ filly. You know all about Surfside, who, depending on how she runs Saturday in the Santa Anita Derby, could become a contender in your Derby.

No, I’m talking about a female trainer. She has a horse called The Deputy, who is the Santa Anita Derby’s second favorite on the morning line. If The Deputy finishes first, she will become the first female trainer to win that prestigious race. And you can expect a call from her requesting a stall at Churchill Downs, where she would be trying to become the first female trainer to win the Kentucky Derby.

Quiet. It’s neither polite nor politically correct to laugh at that notion. Besides, I know you like women at your track--as long as they’re wearing big hats and high heels, sipping mint juleps and hanging onto some high-rolling, gambling man’s coat sleeve.

But a woman trainer winning the Kentucky Derby?

I know what you’re thinking. Just who does Jenine Sahadi think she is? Just because she has won a couple of Breeders’ Cup races, she thinks she can train horses?

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Yes, that’s her name, Jenine Sahadi. You might remember her from the 1983 Kentucky Derby. She took some days off from high school and went with her father, Fred, who owns a horse farm in Northern California. One of his homebreds, Desert Wine, finished second that year to Sunny’s Halo.

You probably don’t remember her from her only other visit. She was a freshman at the University of Kentucky, drove to Churchill Downs with some classmates and spent the day partying in the infield. She doesn’t remember it, either.

That’s the same Jenine Sahadi who transferred to USC, earned her degree in journalism and spent seven years working in the marketing and publicity department at Hollywood Park.

Now there’s a nice job at the racetrack for a woman.

We all know the things that have been said about her since she earned her trainer’s license in 1993--that she started fast because her former boyfriend, Julio Canani, trained the horses for her. In more recent times, during a slump, her own father sent two of his horses to her husband, Ben Cecil, to train instead of her. They made a big deal out of that on the radio.

Cecil comes from a respected racing family in England, and although their operations at Santa Anita are separate, he sometimes uses her office. Earlier this week, someone saw him there and remarked about how nice it was of him to assist Sahadi with The Deputy. What else are we supposed to think? Cecil is from England. The Deputy is from England.

If Cecil is not training The Deputy, then maybe it’s jockey Chris McCarron.

That was the suggestion made Thursday by trainer Bob Baffert during the breakfast for the Santa Anita Derby post-position draw. Sitting at the head table with Sahadi and McCarron, Baffert asked the jockey, “By the way, who’s training the horse, you or Jenine?”

Sahadi waited patiently for an opening and, when asked by a reporter about The Deputy, said, “Thank God he’s got a lot of class because there’s a lot of people around here that don’t.”

Then she stormed off.

My, she’s cute when she gets angry.

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Coincidentally, I had spoken with her 24 hours earlier at the Santa Anita Clocker’s Corner about the lack of respect she receives. She wasn’t angry about it at the time, before Baffert’s broadside, although she confessed that she is “a little bit sour.”

The perceptions, she said, are misperceptions.

Sure, Canani helped her, but, by the time she won her first Breeders’ Cup race with Lit De Justice in 1996, she had been on her own for more than two years.

Yes, her father did give two horses to her husband to train shortly after they were married--to welcome his new son-in-law into the family.

And, yes, Cecil does occasionally work in her office because he doesn’t have one of his own at the track.

“I find that people always want to find someone else to give credit to when I have success,” she said. “I don’t care. I know what I do.

“The only thing that frustrates me is that I would really like to train a barn full of good horses. If a man had been in my position, won two Breeders’ Cups and everything else, they’d have a barn full of horses. I’ve got about 20 right now. I’ve got some that can run and some that can’t.

“Look at my husband. He’s been training for three years now. He does a really good job. But I’m not going to lie to you. It was frustrating when, after a year, he was getting all these amazing European horses.

“Well, what do I have to do? I guess I have to go in for a sex change, grow a mustache and get an English accent. I know I’ll get horses that way. I’m sure of it.”

I assured her that she would have more opportunities if The Deputy has success in the Triple Crown races.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Racing is very much like an old boy’s club. There’s definitely a Kentucky mentality that’s rolled out to California. Every woman trainer I’ve ever been involved with knows what they’re doing, they’re conscientious and they work hard for everything they get. I can’t say that about every man out here.”

Of course, you guys know the reason for that. It’s because men are stronger. They let the horse know who is boss.

Wait until you see Sahadi work. She gives the horses peppermints, calls them by names like “Pumpkin,” talks to them like they’re pets.

Pets don’t win the Kentucky Derby!

Women. The next thing you know, they’re going to demand the right to vote.

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Randy Harvey can be reached at his e-mail address: randy.harvey@latimes.com.

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Santa Anita Derby

Saturday 2:30 p.m.

Channel 11

The Draw: Page 12