There’s Plenty of Pretenders but Few Contenders

Is there a serum out there that’s being marketed on the sly? Here it is, the second Saturday in February, 12 weeks before the first Saturday in May, and that Derby fever epidemic, usually a galloping phenomenon by now, is well under control.

Oh sure, a record number of 439 colts and fillies have been nominated to the Triple Crown races, but there is more gripping evidence that the headlong rush to enter a horse in the Kentucky Derby has been nicely tempered.

Wayne Lukas, a four-time Derby winner, has nominated 21 horses, but the fact that he trains a 3-year-old that hasn’t been nominated is more noteworthy. It’s not the $600 nominating fee, it’s just Lukas being more realistic about Yonaguska, recent winner of the Hutcheson Stakes at Gulfstream Park. A son of Cherokee Run, who was a champion sprinter, Yonaguska seems a cinch to have distance limitations, and Lukas will save him for the shorter races.

There appears to be a lot of these reality checks going around. At Santa Anita two weeks before the Hutcheson, Lasersport won a six-furlong dash and his trainer, Darrell Vienna, did no gushing about the 1 1/4-mile Derby. Vienna trained Lasersport’s sire, Gilded Time, who won only once--in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile--beyond a mile during a brief career. Vienna did nominate Lasersport to the Triple Crown, but that courtesy became academic when the colt was injured in his next race and sent to the sidelines.

At Gulfstream Park, trainer Joe Orseno has finally brought his champion 2-year-old, Mucho Uno, from the farm to his shedrow, but the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winner hasn’t had a timed workout yet and his debut this year probably won’t be until the Florida Derby on March 10. Horses getting a March start as 3-year-olds seldom win the Kentucky Derby. The last was Sunday Silence in 1989. Look for Macho Uno’s first Triple Crown race to be the Preakness, on the third Saturday in May. This was Orseno’s ploy last year, when he skipped the Derby and won the Preakness with Red Bullet.

Early Flyer, another son of Gilded Time, won last Saturday’s San Vicente, the stake in which Lasersport was injured, and his owner, Verne Winchell, and trainer, Ron McAnally, have been around too long to misconstrue a seven-furlong win in February as a down payment on roses.

“Last year was a bad year for my stable,” Winchell said, “so I’m just happy to start out this one with a Grade II win. I doubt very much if Early Flyer will turn out to be a mile-and-a-quarter horse. Unless he turned out to be a real contender, we wouldn’t go for the Derby. If he turns out to be a good miler, I’ll be very happy.”

The wealthy Winchell, whose business strategy was doughnuts to dollars, was 24 when he saw Johnstown win the 1939 Derby. He has been back to Churchill Downs with his horses only twice, never running better than fourth. If he and McAnally were ever to contract incurable Derby fever, it would have been in 1962. They had paid $16,000 for a yearling son of 1954 Derby winner Determine, who became the well-named, grown-up Donut King. His career started at Santa Anita, but by the end of 1961 Donut King was the toast of New York, beating Crimson Satan, the eventual 2-year-old champion, and Jaipur in the Champagne at Aqueduct.

As a 3-year-old, Donut King got a late start, not running until March 20, but a month later he could have won the Wood Memorial. In a roughly run race, Donut King still ran third, beaten by less than a length by Sunrise County, who was disqualified in favor of Admiral’s Voyage.

The Derby was only two weeks later, and Winchell and McAnally couldn’t wait. Ridan and Sunrise County were the favorites, and Donut King was going to be the third or fourth choice. But less than a week out, Winchell’s colt was injured in a workout. He missed the Derby and his career was over.

McAnally finally got a horse into the Derby starting gate in 1980, and he has saddled 10 horses in all, some of them for owners with Derby fever. Like Winchell, his best finish has been a fourth place.

Early Flyer’s next race will be the one-mile San Rafael Stakes on March 3.

“His sire won the Breeders’ Cup at a mile and a sixteenth, so maybe he can get that far,” McAnally said.

He’s actually more enthusiastic about another young horse in his barn.

“He’s by Pine Bluff [the 1992 Preakness winner], out of Wedding Ring,” McAnally said. “We got him late, from Texas, and he’s just begun training. It’ll be too late for the Derby.”

His name?

“I don’t think he has one yet,” McAnally said. “[The Jockey Club] didn’t accept the name they sent in, so they’ll have to come up with something else.”

At Santa Anita on Friday, a 3-year-old colt named Wild And Wise won the $75,000 Sham Stakes. The unfortunate Sham deserves more than a $75,000 race named after him, but when you’re born the same year as Secretariat, this is what history leaves you.

Wild And Wise, bred and owned by John and Betty Mabee and trained by Bob Baffert, has not been nominated for the Triple Crown. There’s a late deadline for that, March 31, when the fee jumps from $600 to $6,000. An owner can even wait until May and run at Churchill Downs by paying a $150,000 supplement. Derby fever knows no price.

Notes

The rubber match between Chilukki and Spain will be Sunday, with only three other 4-year-olds running in the $200,000 La Canada Stakes. Spain, winner of last year’s Breeders’ Cup Distaff, won the seven-furlong La Brea Stakes on Dec. 30 as Chilukki finished fourth, beaten by 1 1/2 lengths. But in the 1 1/16-mile El Encino on Jan. 21, Spain was second, 2 1/2 lengths behind Chilukki. The post-position lineup for the La Canada, which is run at 1 1/8 miles: Spain, Victor Espinoza riding; High Walden, Kent Desormeaux; Brianda, Matt Garcia; Chilukki, Gary Stevens and Letter Of Intent, Laffit Pincay. . . . Stevens will be in Florida today, to ride Manndar in the $200,000 Gulfstream Park Breeders’ Cup Handicap. The Hollywood Park-based Manndar has lost four in a row since winning the Manhattan Handicap at Belmont Park in June. . . . The allowance win at Santa Anita on Friday was the first since Oct. 18, 1998, for the 8-year-old Hawksley Hill, who has earned about $1.6 million. During his losing streak, Hawksley Hill was disqualified from first to fourth in the $1-million Atto Mile at Woodbine in 1999. . . . Chris McCarron will ride the 3-year-old Dollar Bill in the Risen Star Stakes at the New Orleans Fair Grounds on Feb. 18. . . . Tiznow, who bled slightly while finishing second to Wooden Phone in the Strub, has resumed training for the $1-million Santa Anita Handicap on March 3. . . . Habitony, the sire of Best Pal, was euthanized at Golden Eagle Farm near Ramona on Jan. 30. Habitony, 27, had a heart condition. He won the Santa Anita Derby in 1977.