McPherson’s Black Ruby Puts Its Best Feet Forward

The richest mule ever to race is piling up victories on three good legs for an owner who has only one leg.

Sonny McPherson, who bought Black Ruby for an undisclosed sum four years ago, has seen the 8-year-old molly--that’s a female mule--run her purses up to $96,000. McPherson, who lives in Healdsburg, Calif., about 100 miles north of San Francisco, says that with one more victory Black Ruby will become the first mule to have won $100,000.

That milestone is likely to be passed at the Solano County Fair, in Vallejo on Wednesday if there are enough daring rival mule trainers. Otherwise, Black Ruby will make her bid for the six-figure mark July 23, closing day at the fair, in the $10,000 Millennium Stakes.

According to McPherson, Black Ruby has 37 victories, nine seconds and three thirds in 49 starts. She was near perfect in 1999, with 11 victories and one second in 12 tries.

When McPherson spotted Black Ruby in Winnemucca, Nev., in 1996, she was winning races--and beating his champion 3-year-old, Plenty--on a right hind foot that was badly damaged. But McPherson could relate to handicaps, because since 1981, he’s gotten around with a prosthesis. His right leg was amputated above the knee in the aftermath of an automobile accident.

“I was told not to buy her because of that foot, which was pretty well torn up,” said McPherson, 60. “They’d have to change her bandages three times a day. But the way she ran against Plenty, I knew she could be a good one. There’s still a big knot [on the ankle], but it doesn’t seem to bother her.”

Black Ruby was traveling in Montana when one of her back legs went through the floor of a trailer, causing the injury.

McPherson won’t say how much he paid for Black Ruby but does say a general price range for racing mules is $3,500-$20,000. Two years ago, McPherson said, he was offered $30,000 for Black Ruby.

And?

“I just laughed,” he said.

According to McPherson, Black Ruby has won the world title--mule racing’s equivalent of horse of the year--the last four years.

Most mules, the offspring of male donkeys and female horses, are sterile, so there are no breeding considerations. And since mules are allowed to race until they’re 16 years old, Black Ruby might be only at the midpoint of her career.

In her last start, last Sunday, she and her jockey, Jimmy Burns, broke sharply in the Pleasanton Championship Stakes and won convincingly. She carried 128 pounds, 14 of which was lead and equipment--dead weight, horsemen say--because Burns weighs only 114 pounds.

Black Ruby is trained by Jerry Jackson, 73, a veteran on the Northern California fair circuit. Jackson has trained just about every horse breed--thoroughbreds, quarter horses and Appaloosas--at the fairs. Years ago, he had Daytime Bargain, a hard-knocking thoroughbred gelding who earned more than $300,000.

Plenty was the first mule Jackson ever trained, and Black Ruby the second.

Jackson’s stable at Vallejo includes 20 thoroughbreds, six Appaloosas, two quarter horses and six mules.

“Black Ruby gets out of the gate like a quarter horse and then she runs like a horse,” Jackson said. “She’s very competitive. She’s got to win. Many mules, when they’re bothered--when dirt hits them, or another mule gets in their way--they’ll take themselves up. This one, she just runs right through all that.”

Black Ruby runs her morning blowouts at the track where she’s running, but the rest of the time she stays in Healdsburg with the McPhersons. She runs in the name of Mary McPherson, Sonny’s wife, who is a shipping coordinator for a high-tech company.

“Naturally, we’re having a lot of fun with this mule,” Sonny McPherson said. “But it’s also a business with us. Things can get expensive, like anything else, and the bills have to be taken care of. Mary and I don’t have any children. The mules are our kids.”

McPherson was working as a truck driver before he lost most of his right leg. He gets around without crutches or a wheelchair.

He owns 10 mules now, six of whom are racing. It was in 1995, the year before he bought Black Ruby, that McPherson got serious about the mule business. A veterinarian friend, Charles Campbell, encouraged him to move from riding to racing mules. McPherson found Plenty in an Alabama stockyard. Plenty ran against Black Ruby once this year and still couldn’t beat her stablemate. Plenty, who has earned about $35,000, finished sixth.

The fire in Black Ruby’s belly carries over when she’s off the track.

“She’s explosive when she runs, and away from there, you can’t trust her,” McPherson said. “She acts half-crazy sometimes, and can be a handful. But you just have to put up with her.”

Horse Racing Notes

Jockey Eddie Delahoussaye’s wife, Juanita, was released from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center on Friday after undergoing a craniotomy on Monday for an aneurysm near her brain. “Juanita is doing great,” said Delahoussaye, who will ride Prime Timber in today’s Bel Air Handicap at Hollywood Park. “We’re pleased with her recovery.”

Full Moon Madness, who’s won two stakes at the meet, is the 122-pound high-weight in a nine-horse field for Sunday’s $100,000 Robert K. Kerlan Memorial Handicap. Full Moon Madness has earned more than $275,000 since being claimed by trainer Bob Marshall for $32,000.

The next start for Dubai Millennium is expected to be the Champion Stakes at Leopardstown near Dublin, Ireland, on Sept. 9. The last race of his career will be the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Churchill Downs on Nov. 4. . . . Only four fillies will challenge undefeated Hallowed Dreams today at Louisiana Downs as she shoots for her 16th consecutive victory.