Frankel Loads the Field for Derby Stakes

On the backstretch platform where trainers gather to watch their horses work out in the mornings at Hollywood Park, the group included Ron McAnally and Bobby Frankel.

“Know what you two have in common?” somebody asked.

“Yeah,” McAnally said, realizing what was coming, and smiling in spite of it. “Neither one of us has ever won the Kentucky Derby.”

“That’s only part of it,” the other guy said. “A lot of guys haven’t won the Kentucky Derby. But you two guys are in the Hall of Fame and haven’t won the Derby.”

By now, Frankel was also smiling. The 126th running of the Derby is on May 6, and he thinks he’ll be a major player at Churchill Downs for a change. In the next couple of weeks, he’ll be running an outside chance in the Santa Anita Derby and probably the second choice in the Wood Memorial at Aqueduct in New York City. Creditable efforts by both would give Frankel a double-barreled threat in Kentucky.

Cocky, beaten by only three-quarters of a length in the San Rafael Stakes on March 4, will hook up again with War Chant, the San Rafael winner, in the Santa Anita Derby on April 8. A week later, in the Wood, Frankel will run Aptitude, who was a fast-closing second, half a length short, in the Gotham at Aqueduct on March 19.

“I think Bobby’s got the horse to beat,” said McAnally, referring to Aptitude. McAnally is a Kentucky Derby veteran, though winless with 10 starters in Louisville and without a hot 3-year-old this year.

Frankel has been to the Derby only once, having run two horses in 1990, when he finished 13th with Pendleton Ridge and 14th with Burnt Hills. Both colts had come out of the Wood, Burnt Hills running a close second in New York and Pendleton Ridge finishing fourth.

Pendleton Ridge was that Derby oddity, a maiden going into the race, and had run only three times before Churchill Downs. Aptitude has run only four times--the Wood will be his fifth race and final Derby prep--but Frankel is, for lack of a better phrase, borderline cocky about his future.

“He was a slow beginner, but now I think he’s the real deal,” Frankel said. “He shouldn’t have any trouble with a mile and a quarter [the Derby distance].”

Bred and owned by Prince Khalid Abdullah’s Juddmonte Farms, Aptitude is a son of A.P. Indy, the 1992 horse of the year who won the 1 1/2-mile Belmont and the 1 1/4-mile Breeders’ Cup Classic; and Dokki, a mare sired by Northern Dancer, who set the Derby record--broken by Secretariat nine years later--when he won the race in 1964.

The cross-over story in the Wood is that Neil Drysdale, who had to scratch A.P. Indy from the ’92 Derby because of a foot injury, will be running the favorite, Fusaichi Pegasus, in the Aqueduct race. A.P. Indy has been the closest thing to a Kentucky Derby starter for Drysdale, who also trains War Chant.

“With my horse’s pedigree and the way he’s been doing, I wouldn’t trade places with anybody,” Frankel said of Aptitude.

For Verne Winchell, McAnally trained Valiant Nature, who is Cocky’s sire. Valiant Nature won the Hollywood Futurity in 1993, knocking off Brocco, who was undefeated and 2-5, but Winchell’s horse never won another race. He ran second to Holy Bull in the 1994 Blue Grass, then finished next to last at Churchill Downs.

At Keeneland’s September yearling sale in 1998, 2,861 young horses were auctioned, but Cocky wasn’t one of them. Consigned to the sale, he didn’t reach his reserve--the pre-sale minimum price--of $20,000, and he left the ring without having drawn a bid. Horses don’t have psyches, do they? If they did, Cocky’s would have been in smithereens. After that total rejection, he lost all reason to be lower-case cocky.

Left with few options, Alice Headley Chandler of Mill Ridge Farm in Lexington, Ky., and her partner, Audrey Otto, resigned themselves to racing Cocky. If this smacks somewhat of the Charismatic story, last year’s yarn about a horse that no one wanted to buy, so be it.

Under Frankel, Cocky made his debut last July at Del Mar, where he was a distant second to Captain Steve and came out of the race with sore shins. He didn’t run again until January, when he threw in a clinker at Santa Anita, then three weeks later, in the mud, he broke his maiden with a 13-length win. Cocky’s next outing resulted in that solid third-place effort in the San Rafael.

Corey Nakatani, the country’s leader in purses and No. 1 in the win standings at Santa Anita, had been riding Cocky, but in a chain reaction has moved on to Anees, another Santa Anita Derby contender, after Anees’ rider, Jerry Bailey, jumped ship to ride War Chant.

Frankel, who has named Alex Solis to ride Cocky in the Santa Anita Derby, has not taken Nakatani’s departure gracefully. The trainer has banished Nakatani, freezing him out of all the horses in the barn. Grudges in racing are frequently short-lived, but this one has the look of a marathon.

“I was nice to the guy, and this is what I get,” Frankel said. “If this is his idea of loyalty, he can find some other trainers to ride for.”

AROUND THE TRACK

Brice Blanc, who had ridden Aptitude in all four of his races, will keep the mount in the Wood Memorial. . . . This is the expected field for the Santa Anita Derby: War Chant, The Deputy, Anees, Surfside, Captain Steve and Cocky. . . . Trainer Vladimir Cerin is going to give Archer City Slew another chance, and also has added Ronton to the list of Derby candidates.

Next for Globalize, the surprise winner of the Spiral, is the Lexington Stakes at Keeneland on April 22. . . . Dubai’s Sheik Mohammed, whose Worldly Manner ran seventh in last year’s Kentucky Derby, has three contenders in China Visit, Curile and Chief Seattle. China Visit was a 4 1/2-length winner over Bachir, the sheik’s more highly regarded 3-year-old, in the United Arab Emirates Derby last Saturday in Dubai. China Visit, not nominated in January for the Triple Crown series, is expected to be a late nominee, for $6,000, by Saturday’s deadline. As he did with Worldly Manner, the sheik has dipped into the U.S. ranks for Chief Seattle, who was sold after he ran second to Anees in last year’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Gulfstream Park.

Bobby Frankel thinks that Dubai Millennium’s six-length margin in the Dubai World Cup should have been more. “It was two seconds before the next horse [Behrens] hit the wire,” Frankel said. “The way the winner ran, I was just happy to come home with $600,000 [for Public Purse’s third-place finish].”