Surfside Seems Up to Task

In 1988, the year Winning Colors would win the Kentucky Derby, there were no early plans to run her in the race that had been won only twice before by fillies.

“We weren’t committed until after she won the Santa Anita Derby,” said trainer Wayne Lukas.

That winter at Santa Anita, Winning Colors stayed within her division. In fact, she wasn’t even considered the best filly on the grounds after Goodbye Halo beat her by a neck in a rip-roaring Las Virgenes Stakes. Three weeks later, though, Goodbye Halo, the 7-10 favorite, ran third as Winning Colors romped by eight lengths in the Santa Anita Oaks.

Winning Colors was 7 1/2 lengths the best against the boys in the Santa Anita Derby, and then Lukas and owner Gene Klein decided on the moon shoot.

This year, Lukas has another filly that might be good enough to win the Derby, but the difference is that he and her owner-breeder, Overbrook Farm’s William T. Young, have been up front early about their objective. Lukas was talking about Surfside running in the Derby in December.

Young, who will be 82 Tuesday, is a Kentuckian who won the 1996 Derby with Grindstone. He figures Surfside will be one of his last shots at an encore.

“We’ve been thinking Derby all the way, with the option always being that we could drop down to the Kentucky Oaks,” Lukas said. “This filly is an imposing figure. She’s right on her game, and her style should be so perfect for the Derby. This is a bold approach, but we have the horse that gives you the right to be bold.”

Saturday at Santa Anita, Surfside will try to win the Las Virgenes, the one-mile race that eluded Winning Colors. Only three other horses--one of them trained by Lukas--have been entered.

Lukas has memorized the other Santa Anita dates: “March 12 [the Santa Anita Oaks], then April 8 [the Santa Anita Derby]. Then that gives us plenty of time to get to Kentucky.”

The Kentucky Derby is on May 6. Horsemen sometimes call it “The first Saturday in May,” but Lukas works by a different calendar. “If you’re a trainer, the Derby really amounts to the second Saturday in April,” he said. “What I mean by that is, if you don’t know by then whether you’ve got a Derby horse, then you’re just fooling yourself.”

Lukas’ high opinion of Surfside is shared by more objective observers. The Blood-Horse magazine ranks her No. 1 among 3-year-olds. She was ranked fourth by the Louisville Courier-Journal’s Derby panel, and this week the Daily Racing Form had her fourth.

“There are a lot of people in our corner on this filly,” Lukas said. “Many astute people think she has what it takes. Even some of the traditionalists, the guys who don’t believe in fillies running against colts, think she can go on.”

A daughter of 1977 Triple Crown champion Seattle Slew out of the Breeders’ Cup-winning mare, Flanders, Surfside hasn’t run farther than 1 1/16 miles but Lukas doesn’t see the 1 1/4-mile Derby distance as an obstacle.

“She’s got distance written all over her,” he said.

Lukas has won the Derby four times, last year’s with Charismatic, but going into 1988, he had failed with 12 starters, two of them fillies--Life’s Magic and Althea.

By 1988, Lukas was already known as a trainer not bashful about running multiple entries in the Derby, and in Winning Colors’ year his barn seemed to be so deep in colts that at least a couple were expected to go on to Louisville. Some of the prospects were Tejano, Success Express, Notebook, Cougarized and Dynaformer. But on Derby day, Lukas was there only with Winning Colors.

Trainer Woody Stephens, whose Forty Niner would fall short by a neck to Winning Colors, scoffed at the filly’s chances. Stephens predicted that Winning Colors would end up far back.

This year, there will be no scoffing. If Surfside has the right stuff and makes it to the Derby, she will not have sneaked up on the opposition.

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Santa Anita’s stewards said they would announce a ruling on jockey Pat Valenzuela today on his recent positive drug test. . . . Surfside, who’ll be ridden by Pat Day, drew the inside post in the Las Virgenes on Saturday. Also entered are Spain, Rings A Chime and Burning Hope, also trained by Lukas.