Groundbreaking Win for Krone in Malibu

Julie Krone had one more mount, in a race that would be run in about 20 minutes, but she was in no hurry to leave the winner’s circle. The jockeys’ room and a change of silks could wait. Pictures? Take as many as you want. Interviews? Just hand her the microphone. Hugs and handshakes? She had a million of them.

Krone’s comeback, launched Nov. 1 at the same Santa Anita track, reached an apex Thursday when the 39-year-old Hall of Fame jockey rode Debonair Joe to an unlikely victory in the opening-day Malibu Stakes before a crowd of 25,677. Debonair Joe was 26-1, the biggest upset in Malibu history, and until Krone returned to the saddle, after 3 1/2 years away, the odds on a woman winning a Grade I race at Santa Anita had been in the millions.

Which is to say, it had never been done before. Not at Santa Anita, or any other track in California. Mainly because there has never been a welcome mat for female riders. What few to come this way have trudged off in frustration, unable to build a steady business, far from getting assignments in major stakes. The more accomplished female riders, paying attention, stayed in the East. Krone included.

Krone is not one to delve into the gender thing, but even she was staggered by the enormity of Thursday’s feat. As she floated from the winner’s circle to the changing room, the ninth race one of the furthest things from her mind, she said: “Other than the Belmont, I’ve never been this excited about anything.”

At the time she re-opened a career that had produced 3,545 winners, the pinnacle had been winning the 1993 Belmont Stakes with Colonial Affair. The Belmont is the Belmont, but for the cherry on top she had also been the first woman to ever ride a winner in a Triple Crown race.

She had warmed up for this at the recent Hollywood Park meet, riding 16 winners to finish seventh in the standings.

“I’m a little wild about this,” she said. “There are a lot of emotions that are running through me. You can’t imagine what a feeling it is to be in the stretch with a horse that’s just pulling you to the front.”

Not that long ago, Debonair Joe was more a candidate to be pulling a wagon. The 3-year-old gelding, once a contender in some of the better races for California-breds, had sunk this year to bottom-of-the-barrel claiming company, and in September at Fairplex Park had been bought from trainer Craig Lewis for $12,500.

Trainer Juan Pablo Silva, who made the claim, risked losing him three times, for prices of either $28,000 or $40,000, but nobody was interested, even though he started winning -- at Santa Anita in October and again at Golden Gate Fields last month. When Silva hired Krone to ride him for the first time, Debonair Joe won the Grade III Vernon O. Underwood at Hollywood Park on Dec. 7. The $2 win mutuel was a whopping $107.60. Thursday’s payoff was $55.60.

“I guess this is the reason they go ahead and run these races,” said trainer Wayne Lukas, who saddled another longshot, Shah Jehan, who finished next to last in the 11-horse field.

At the half-mile mark, Debonair Joe was in eighth place. At the eighth pole, he was fourth, three lengths from the front, but well wide with no horses to block his path.

“This is a horse that knows where the wire is,” Krone said. “I’ve worked him fast and I’ve worked him slow. You just have to let him do what he wants to do. That’s what keeps him happy.”

Total Limit finished second, beaten by a head, and American System, one of the pace-setters, was third, another half-length back. For his sixth victory in 18 starts, Debonair Joe earned $120,000, running seven furlongs in 1:22 2/5. Sunday Break, the 5-2 favorite, was close to the early pace before finishing last.

The day Silva claimed Debonair Joe, for Lynne Ristad of Pismo Beach, the horse finished fifth in a six-horse field.

“It was a lucky claim,” Silva said. “The horse has been improving and improving.”

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Eddie Delahoussaye, the Hall of Fame jockey who has been sidelined for four months, said that he will retire if he doesn’t receive approval from his doctors to resume riding in mid-January.

Delahoussaye, 51, suffered the fifth concussion of his 36-year career in a spill at Del Mar on Aug. 30 and has been getting therapy for a sore neck ever since. He is scheduled to undergo an MRI on Jan. 13.

“If they won’t release me, I’m just going to hang it up,” Delahoussaye said.