It Will Be Awe or Nothing for Fusaichi

Even for a Kentucky Derby winner, the awe--if any--usually comes later.

The awe for Secretariat came after he made that breathtaking early move in the Preakness two weeks later, or after he demolished the clock and the opposition while winning the Belmont Stakes three weeks after that.

The awe for Citation came after he kept giving weight while winning to the tune of 16 in a row, the best streak by a major horse until Cigar matched it years later.

The awe for Affirmed came after he turned back Alydar one more time, in that rip-snorting Belmont in which they raced in virtual lock step for the final seven-eighths of a mile.

But with Fusaichi Pegasus, the awe is already here, well ahead of its time. This robust son of the late Mr. Prospector won the Derby so impressively two weeks ago that today, in the 125th running of the Preakness, the big crowd at Pimlico might be crestfallen if he doesn’t win with equal authority.

Clem Florio, the Pimlico linemaker, has made Fusaichi Pegasus the 3-5 favorite going in, and by the time the betting is over, the odds on trainer Neil Drysdale’s bay colt might dive in the direction of Citation (1948) and Spectacular Bid (1979), who both paid a measly 10 cents on the dollar when they won the Preakness.

Bob Baffert didn’t use the word, but it’s fair to say that he’s in awe of Fusaichi Pegasus. Baffert’s Captain Steve, beaten by 14 lengths in the Derby, will try to give his trainer a third Preakness win in the last four years.

“I never saw a horse win the Derby and come here and get so much attention,” Baffert said.

Baffert’s 1997-98 Derby winners, Silver Charm and Real Quiet, came to Pimlico and, though they won the Preakness, they didn’t even go off as favorites.

“The press and the public thought Captain Bodgit would beat Silver Charm here,” Baffert said in front of Captain Steve’s barn Friday. “Then the next year, everybody was talking up Victory Gallop as the horse that’d beat Real Quiet in the Preakness. But there’s none of that this year. Neil has a lot of confidence in his horse, and he ought to, because he’s a great horse. You know how you always find a way to knock the other guy’s horse? Well, with Fusaichi Pegasus, you can’t do that. He’s that good.”

Ask Baffert how he plans to beat Fusaichi Pegasus with Captain Steve, and all he can do is joke. He has mentioned hiring the Stanford band as a strategy. He has suggested, since all the male horses carry 126 pounds in the Triple Crown races, that Fusaichi Pegasus be forced to start from behind the gate.

For Baffert, the Wood Memorial, run at Aqueduct three weeks before the Derby, was Fusaichi Pegasus’ most impressive race. He won that day--under a hand ride from jockey Kent Desormeaux--by more than four lengths, knocking off the previously unbeaten Red Bullet.

“At the three-eighths pole, Fusaichi Pegasus looked like he had come off the bridle,” Baffert said. “I thought he might be in trouble. But then Desormeaux niggled at him some, and he took off again. I thought: Wow! I thought, we’re going to need a bigger boat. I knew then that [the Triple Crown] was going to be a tough assignment for all of us.”

Down the path from Baffert, trainer Wayne Lukas stood in front of his end of the Preakness barn. Leave it to Lukas, still trying to fathom how a solid colt such as High Yield could run 15th in the Derby, to balance the equation. The awe for Fusaichi Pegasus has not arrived at Lukas’ door.

“Winning any of these races is not as easy as you think,” said Lukas, who once won six consecutive Triple Crown races and who has won 12 overall. “I mean, some pretty good horses--Skip Away and Easy Goer are two pretty fair examples--have come in here and not won the Preakness. You can throw around all the superlatives [about Fusaichi Pegasus] that you want, but they won’t mean a thing [today] at 5:30 [EDT]. He’s still got to do what he did in the Derby all over again.”

Lukas is banking on two things: that High Yield can’t possibly run as poorly as he did in the Derby, and that a third consecutive hard race could derail Fusaichi Pegasus.

“You don’t get to the winner’s circle in the Derby without running a tough prep race,” Lukas said. “So actually, by the time you get to Pimlico, you’re talking about running your third tough race in a row, not your second. The Wood was a tough race. It was tough on the winner, and it was tough on my horse, Exchange Rate. After Exchange Rate ran [12th] in the Derby, there was no way I could go on with him in the Preakness.”

Because he ran second in the Wood and sat out the Derby, Red Bullet is 9-2, the second choice on the morning line.

Thirty minutes after the Wood, there was a conversation between Frank Stronach, the owner of Red Bullet, and trainer Joe Orseno about whether to run their colt in the Derby. In 1997, Stronach let trainer David Hofmans skip the Derby, and after Touch Gold, with an unlucky trip, ran fourth in the Preakness, he won the Belmont to spoil Silver Charm’s Triple Crown bid.

“My heart says we run in the Derby,” Stronach was saying to Orseno about Red Bullet. “Is this horse special?”

“Yes, I think he’s special,” Orseno said.

“Well, if that’s the case,” Stronach said, “let’s not mess him up. Let’s do the right thing, and not go to the Derby.”

Like Lukas, Orseno wonders how many big races Fusaichi Pegasus can keep running. Orseno subscribes to a handicapping service, the Ragozin sheets, that assesses horses. The lower the Ragozin number, the stronger the race.

“Fusaichi Pegasus got a 2 1/2 in the Wood,” Orseno said. “He put up another 2 1/2 in the Derby. I’d think it’s going to be real hard for him to do that again. But my horse only got a 5 in the Wood, so he needs to improve a lot. The way I see it, he needs to run a 2 1/2 or a 3 to have a shot in the Preakness. But if he can do that, I can see my horse and Fusaichi Pegasus right at the wire together.”

Harold Rose, the 88-year-old trainer who bred and owns Hal’s Hope, has a 20-1 shot trying to recover the form he showed nine weeks ago in winning the Florida Derby.

“For any of us to have a chance,” Rose said, “Fusaichi Pegasus has to not run his race. My horse [a front-runner] needs to have a reasonable pace, not the fast fractions he set in the Derby. I’d like to get away with a [25-second quarter-mile] and a 50-second half-mile, and then let Fusaichi Pegasus try to come and catch us.”

Rose was exaggerating about those splits, of course, because the Preakness is never run that slowly. Hugh Hefner, another 20-1 shot whose final odds will be much higher, will make Hal’s Hope hustle early, something Rose doesn’t want. Hugh Hefner is here to salvage a piece of the purse--Pimlico pays back to fourth place--but his owner, Eddie Nahem, never runs from a roll of the dice. “I think Fusaichi Pegasus is a tremendous horse,” Nahem said. “But gambling has a lot to do with this game, and we’re here to take the gamble.”

After the failed Belmont efforts of Silver Charm, Real Quiet and Charismatic the last three years, the racing industry is on the side of Fusaichi Pegasus, who has the right stuff to be the real thing. Those on the side of awe are already sizing him as the first Triple Crown champion since Affirmed swept in 1978.

Don’t count Lukas among these sentimentalists.

“If that horse winning the Preakness helps the game, then I’m not really dedicated that much to the game,” Lukas said.

Horse Racing Notes

Kent Desormeaux, who rides Fusaichi Pegasus, rode Jostle to a 2 1/2-length win over favored March Magic in the $200,000 Black-Eyed Susan Stakes for 3-year-old fillies Friday at Pimlico. Jostle, previously winless this year, paid $13.80, running 1 1/8 miles in 1:52 2/5 on a muddy track. Impending Bear was third and Cash Run ran fourth. Desormeaux also won the Pimlico Special last Saturday with Golden Missile. . . . Colstar, paying $8.20, beat Melody Queen by 2 1/2 lengths in the $100,000 Gallorette Handicap.

Fusao Sekiguchi, the Tokyo businessman who owns Fusaichi Pegasus, won’t attend the Preakness. Sekiguchi, 64, was injured bumping into a chair, walks with a cane and finds it difficult to travel. He will be represented today by Yukari Sekiguchi, his daughter-in-law and the owner’s liaison with trainer Neil Drysdale. . . . Chances of an off track increased when the forecast was changed to a 50% chance of rain and thundershowers. Temperatures will be in the low 70s.

THE FACTS

* When: Today, 2:25 p.m. PDT

* Where: Pimlico Race Course, Baltimore

* TV: Channel 7 (coverage begins 1:30 PDT)

THE FIELD

The field for the 125th Preakness Stakes. Weights: 126 pounds; Distance: 1 3/16 miles; Purse: $1 million.

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P Horse Odds 1. Hugh Hefner 20-1 2. Snuck In 12-1 3. Impeachment 8-1 4. Red Bullet 9-2 5. High Yield 10-1 6. Captain Steve 8-1 7. Fusaichi Pegasus 3-5 8. Hal’s Hope 20-1

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