He Might Be Ichi at Finish Line, but He’s Itchy at Start

I like the favorite, Fusaichi Pegasus, in today’s Kentucky Derby.

Thanks for nothing, you’re probably thinking. Your Aunt Mildred can pick the favorite. Bold choice, Harvey.

In fact, it is. No favorite has won the Derby since Spectacular Bid in 1979.

There are at least as many theories about that as there have been Derbies since then. Mine is the simplest, that there haven’t been any horses in the last 20 years as spectacular as Spectacular Bid.

Fusaichi Pegasus might be.

On the night he was born, April 12, 1997, his breeder, Arthur Hancock III of Stone Farm in Paris, Ky., wrote in the farm log: “Nice, big, good-looking colt. Very alert, very impressive individual.”

He nicknamed him “Superman.”

He soon found that he liked talking to the horse. He liked it even better when the horse talked back. Now Hancock, of the famous Claiborne Farm Hancocks, has been known to romanticize his foals, but he insists that he once greeted the horse with a funny sound and was amazed when the horse responded with virtually the same sound.

Word spread. At the 1998 Keeneland July Selected Sale, trainer Bob Baffert said, “As soon as you hit the grounds, he was the buzz. Everybody said I had to go see him. I went and saw him and said, ‘Yeah, he looks great. He’ll go for $3 million. Maybe more.’ ”

More. Fusao Sekiguchi, a Japanese entrepreneur, bid $4 million. He said later he would have gone as high as $5 million.

Fusaichi Pegasus lost his first race as a 2-year-old last December at Hollywood Park but since has won four in a row, including the Wood Memorial in April at Aqueduct by 4 1/4 lengths.

He is a “stone-cold, 24-karat freak in the best sense of the word,” handicapper Steve Davidowitz, who wrote “Betting Thoroughbreds,” told the Louisville Courier-Journal this week.

Now all this superhorse’s trainer, Neil Drysdale, has to do is get him to the starting gate.

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That’s maybe not so easy as it sounds.

Trainer Jenine Sahadi, sharing a barn with Drysdale on the Churchill Downs backside, raves about Fusaichi Pegasus’ talent but adds that she wouldn’t trade her horse, The Deputy, for him.

Barry Irwin, The Deputy’s co-owner, calls Fusaichi Pegasus a “keg of dynamite.”

I’ve made a list this week of adjectives used by backside frequenters to describe the horse’s personality. They include cantankerous, eccentric, petulant, rambunctious, rebellious and roguish.

They all beat calling him by his real name, a combination of Sekiguchi’s first name and the word ichi, which means No. 1 in Japanese.

Drysdale, who has been saddling horses for three decades and was elected this week to the Hall of Fame, thought he had answered every question imaginable until the other day, when he was asked to spell the horse’s name phonetically.

Although he formerly taught English in Spain, he resisted but didn’t object when someone suggested Foo-sah-EEE-chi.

No matter what you call the horse, the ichi priority of every other trainer during the post-position draw Wednesday seemed to be keeping their horses as far from Fusaichi Pegasus as possible.

He reared, unseated his rider and then fell during a workout last week, then reared again during another workout Tuesday.

Those incidents occurred before dawn with virtually no one at the track.

You have to wonder how he will react today when confronted with 130,000 fans in wildly varying degrees of sobriety, blaring bands and clicking cameras.

Bernie Hattel, chief steward of the Kentucky Racing Commission, said that Fusaichi Pegasus, like the 18 other horses, will have 12 minutes to complete the post parade to the starting gate. If he doesn’t make it, he will be scratched.

Drysdale said he isn’t concerned, calling his horse “playful” but “professional” when it comes time to run. At the Wood, Fusaichi Pegasus stopped during the post parade to look around and then balked again en route to the winner’s circle.

In between, he looked like Secretariat.

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He is the other part of this winning equation, Drysdale is.

The son of an English marine and Korean War hero, Drysdale, 52, takes a regimented, no-nonsense approach to training. He is immune to Derby fever, evidenced by the fact that he has never had a horse in the race.

In 1992, he entered A.P. Indy, who, in retrospect, was the best 3-year-old that year. But Drysdale scratched him after he injured his foot the morning of the race.

He has never looked back.

Asked this week if he thought then that his one Derby chance might have eluded him, he said no, that he was only thinking about how to get A.P. Indy ready for the Belmont Stakes, which he won.

Drysdale has two horses entered this year, Fusaichi Pegasus and fourth-favorite War Chant, but no one questions whether either belongs. It is a business trip.

He has steadfastly refused to answer questions about how he might feel today on the walk from the barn to the paddock. “I don’t do touchy feely,” he says.

No one who knows Drysdale believes he would have entered Fusaichi Pegasus here unless absolutely sure he could handle the pandemonium.

He learned well from his mentor, late Hall of Fame trainer Charlie Whittingham, who said, “Young horses are like strawberries. They spoil very easily.”

Of course, there was something else Whittingham said that Drysdale might recall if he wins today. Whittingham had Derby horses in 1958 and ‘60, then sat out for 26 years before winning with Ferdinand.

“Hell,” he said, “if I’d known it was such a big deal, I would have won it sooner.”

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