Ward: Keep It Off the Record

If Monarchos had run three-fifths of a second faster and shattered Secretariat’s Kentucky Derby record, his trainer, John Ward, would have thrown the achievement back.

“I hope nobody ever breaks Secretariat’s record,” Ward said Sunday morning at Churchill Downs, the day after Monarchos’ powerful 4 3/4-length victory. Monarchos ran 1 1/4 miles in 1:59 4/5 over a rock-hard Churchill surface that produced three track records earlier on the Derby card. Since Secretariat won the Derby in 1:59 2/5 in 1973, no horse had cracked the two-minute barrier. Before Secretariat, the second-fastest time had been Northern Dancer’s 2:00 clocking in 1964.

Born into a family with three generations of racing tradition, Ward is a full-bore Kentuckian who treasures the historical charm of the game.

“Secretariat’s number [time] is a point in history,” Ward said.

At dinner in Lexington, Ky., Saturday night, Jorge Chavez, who rode Monarchos, bemoaned the fact that the colt had flirted with Secretariat’s record.

“We could have been faster if I had moved sooner,” Chavez said to Ward.

“Thank God you didn’t,” Ward said.

Even before the Derby, Ward had scheduled a plane to Baltimore, where Monarchos will try to win the second leg of the Triple Crown, the Preakness, on May 19. The series windup, the Belmont Stakes, will be run in New York on June 9. Monarchos will arrive at Pimlico to begin his Preakness preparations Wednesday. He is a genuine candidate to sweep the Triple Crown, something done only 11 times, the last in 1978 by Affirmed.

“He sure was impressive,” said Eddie Delahoussaye, who rode Jamaican Rum to a sixth-place finish in the Derby. “There’s a chance he’ll win the Triple Crown. But I said the same thing last year about Fusaichi Pegasus.”

Fusaichi Pegasus also was a strong Derby winner, but he caught an off track at Pimlico and might not have defeated Red Bullet anyway in the Preakness.

There are only four definite Derby holdovers--Monarchos, Congaree (third in the race), Point Given (fifth) and A P Valentine (seventh)--for the Preakness. The field is expected to be fleshed out by Percy Hope, winner of the Lone Star Derby; Mr. John, second before being disqualified to eighth in the Lexington Stakes; Distilled, winner of the Illinois Derby; and Marciano, who won the Federico Tesio at Pimlico on April 21.

The 127th Derby was not a roughly run race, as Derbies go, but several horses came out of the race in less than top shape. Millennium Wind, who finished 11th in the 17-horse field, suffered superficial cuts to his right foreleg. Dollar Bill, who was 15th, “has a slight kink,” said trainer Dallas Stewart, without being specific. After his 14th-place finish, Balto Star suffered “a minor heat stroke,” according to trainer Todd Pletcher, and the gelding was dehydrated Sunday.

Talk Is Money, a 47-1 shot, had a litany of problems. There were rumors he was lame before the race. In the tunnel that leads the horses from the paddock to the track, he wheeled around repeatedly, forcing jockey Jerry Bailey to use his whip to straighten him out. Then in the race he bled from the lungs and got overheated. Bailey was forced to pull him up. After the race, he tried to cramp up while being treated by a veterinarian.

While much of the post-Derby discussion was about the hard track and the validity of Monarchos’ winning time, no one was foolish enough to suggest that the winner’s victory was tainted.

A couple of races before the Derby, Ward was furious about the track conditions.

“It’s hard as . . .,” Ward said then. “Why don’t they just move it to Santa Anita or Hollywood Park and get it over with?”

Not unexpectedly, Ward had tempered his position by Sunday.

“The track was blazing fast, and early in the day I was concerned,” he said. “But I thought it was fair, because we were all running over the same surface.”

Todd Pletcher--who saddled Invisible Ink and Balto Star and will send out another of his 3-year-olds, Distilled, in the Preakness--blamed the track for the defeat of Trippi, the favorite that finished seventh Saturday in the Churchill Downs Handicap, which was run five hours before the Derby. Trippi was on or near the lead as the opening half-mile of the seven-furlong race was run in a blistering :43 3/5. The winner, Alannan, reached the wire in 1:20 2/5, breaking the track record by three-fifths of a second.

“It was ridiculous,” Pletcher said. “What [were] they trying to do, set nine track records? They might as well run on Fourth Street. We train [the Derby horses] for two weeks here, but it’s not over the same track that we run over.”

Butch Lehr has been responsible for the Churchill Downs track surface for so long--25 years--that he now bears the title of vice president-track superintendent. Like a typical track superintendent, Lehr is accustomed to criticism.

“If a horse runs bad, trainers have got to tell their owners something,” Lehr told Lexington columnist Billy Reed last week. “The easiest thing to do is blame the track.”

In the Churchill Downs Handicap, Rollin With Nolan, trained by Nick Zito, suffered suspensory ligament damage and is expected to recover.

Lehr said that the track had been given extra water because of the high heat and humidity. When packed down, a track like that may produce fast times.

“The horses got a good hold of the track,” Lehr said. “The track wasn’t totally different, but it was, in my opinion, at its best.”

Trainer Wayne Lukas told Pimlico officials that there was an outside chance he would run a horse in the Preakness. . . . Lukas missed the Derby for the first time in 21 years. . . . “It’s too quick to bring these horses back in two weeks,” Pletcher said in explaining his decision not to run Invisible Ink and Balto Star in the Preakness. . . . Trainer David Hofmans, who said before the Derby that Point Given could sweep the Triple Crown, is now enthusiastic about Monarchos. “I think he could do it two more times,” Hofmans said. “He was the only one finishing strong. Only Invisible Ink and Thunder Blitz finished pretty good.”. . . . Trainer Joe Orseno said that Thunder Blitz, who finished fourth, would skip the Preakness because he was a late foal, having been born in May. The colt is a probable for the Belmont.