Pressure 'Point'

By GRAHAME L. JONES

May 5, 2001 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

LOUISVILLE, Ky. —

Today’s 127th Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs brings together as competitive a field of 3-year-olds as has been seen here in many a year. Point Given might be the clear favorite of the handicappers, but this is a race that can be won by any of its 17 participants.

Well, almost any.

The field can be divided into three more-or-less equal groups: those with great hope, those with some hope and those with little hope.

Of course, that sort of sentence can come back to haunt its author. Put Jamaican Rum, a 50-1 shot on the morning line, in the little-hope group, for example, and jockey Eddie Delahoussaye is likely to bring the colt thundering down the stretch with one of his patented late runs and make a mockery of all predictions.

But since it is Point Given, under jockey Gary Stevens, who has been anointed as the horse to beat, it is best to start with the first group, the favorites.

These would include Point Given and Congaree, his stablemate at trainer Bob Baffert’s barn. Also in the group are Millennium Wind, Monarchos and Balto Star, trained by David Hofmans, John Ward and Todd Pletcher, respectively.

Every trainer in the race has said at some point during the past week that his horse is in the best shape ever and is ready to run. Assuming, therefore, that the horses all have been conditioned equally, it will be other factors--and racing luck--that determine the race’s outcome.

“I think the first turn is the key to winning the Derby,” Baffert said. “When I won [with Silver Charm in 1997 and Real Quiet in 1998], my horses had clean trips around the first turn. The jockeys didn’t have to check and they didn’t get caught in any traffic.

“We’ll need the same kind of luck to win this time.”

What horsemen refer to as “a clean trip” is almost essential, but the winning horse and rider also will have to play it tactically smart.

“Anything can happen in any race,” said Hofmans, who is in his first Derby but who won the Belmont Stakes with Touch Gold in 1997, spoiling, incidentally, the Triple Crown bid of Baffert’s Silver Charm.

“Point Given is a good horse, probably the best horse in the race. But if he makes one or two little mistakes and gives somebody an opportunity, these horses are good enough [so that] any one of the top horses can capitalize on any mistake.”

How well each horse breaks out of the gate is another key.

One of the horses in the second group, those with some hope, might run into problems there. The group is made up of Dollar Bill, Express Tour, A P Valentine, Songandaprayer, Thunder Blitz, Invisible Ink and Keats.

Jockey Pat Day said that Dollar Bill, the bay colt trained by Dallas Stewart, had a gate problem in the Blue Grass Stakes, where he finished third behind Millennium Wind and Songandaprayer.

“The horse right next to him on the outside kind of charged the gate [before the start],” Day said. “He thought it was a go and jumped at the doors. When the doors did open, he broke a little bit slow.”

This afternoon, Dollar Bill will be just inside 50-1 longshot Talk Is Money, who has a history of acting up in the gate, having done so in the Florida Derby. At the post position draw, trainers tried to steer clear of Talk Is Money.

“You rarely get away on the lead by yourself in this race and it’s rarely won wire to wire,” Day continued. “It’s not impossible, it (has) been done, but it’s a tough task.”

No horse has won the Kentucky Derby going wire to wire since the filly Winning Colors in 1988; only five have done so in the past half-century.

That doesn’t bother Pletcher, whose Balto Star is the speed of the speed. Pletcher said he would tell jockey Mark Guidry to allow the Spiral and Arkansas Derby winner to run his race.

“He gets over the track well,” Pletcher said. “That’s one of the things you always worry about when you come to Churchill Downs--how your horse is going to handle the surface--and he seems to be taking to it well.

“We’re not looking to change his style. He’s a free-running horse and we’re going to allow him to leave the gate running freely and let him take them as far as he can.”

Balto Star is the only gelding in the race; only seven geldings have won the Derby, none since Clyde Van Dusen in 1929.

“It’s probably not fair to say that geldings can’t win the race,” Pletcher said. “There have been some geldings in the not-so-distant past that have run very well.

“Best Pal [second to Strike the Gold in 1991] ran very well. Prairie Bayou [second to Sea Hero in 1993]. Cavonnier was beaten by a whisker [by Grindstone in 1996]. Geldings can win the race. That’s not going to slow him down any.”

None of the 17 horses, each of whom will carry 126 pounds, has ever run a 1 1/4-mile race, so the question for many trainers and jockeys will be whether to stay with the speed horses or bide their time.

“I’d love to be about four lengths off [the lead], down on the inside behind some horses, because he will relax there,” Hofmans said of Millennium Wind.

“And then coming off the turn [into the stretch], try to get to the lead. I’d love to have him stick his head out [in front] around the eighth-pole.”

Jockey Laffit Pincay might have other ideas for Millennium Wind, who starts alongside Balto Star.

“All I know is if they let me have the lead, I’m going to go to the lead,” Pincay said. “If they don’t, if I see that there’s too much speed, I know my horse can lay second or third or fourth and close. He will come running at the end. There’s no question in my mind that he can do that.”

Monarchos, meanwhile, will leave the auxiliary gate alongside the favorite, Point Given, putting the Florida Derby winner into an early duel with the Santa Anita Derby winner.

“The way they line up in the gate, I see Songandaprayer [on the extreme inside] having to go when he leaves there,” said Ward, Monarchos’ trainer. “Millennium Wind is going to be right on him. The three speed horses inside have got to get on with it.

“The middle of the gate is going to be fairly good. Congaree might get caught up in a little bit of speed duel with the outside of the gate with us and Point Given. We’re just going to be looking for places to drop in.”

The eventual winner has started from the auxiliary gate in four of the last six years. If the pattern holds, it could be Monarchos and Point Given battling it out at the wire.

The other auxiliary gate horse is Jamaican Rum, potentially the most dangerous of the little-hope group, whose ranks also include Talk Is Money, Fifty Stars, Arctic Boy and Startac.

Their trainers will likely be sharing the sentiment best expressed by Hofmans when asked if the favorite scared him.

“I’m intimidated by Point Given, sure,” Hofmans replied. “I don’t think Millennium Wind is, but I am.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

KENTUCKY DERBY

The field in post position order, with morning-line odds:

1. Songandaprayer: 20-1

2. Millennium Wind: 6-1

3. Balto Star: 8-1

4. Thunder Blitz: 30-1

5. Fifty Stars: 50-1

6. Express Tour: 15-1

7. Arctic Boy: 50-1