Red Bullet Tries Living Up to High Expectations

When the late trainer Charles Whittingham was asked if a particular thoroughbred was a great one, he regularly cited a self-made aphorism: “Never say anything about a horse till he’s been dead for 10 years.”

Whittingham knew that premature judgments in racing are often wrong, and that a prudent man waits until all the evidence is in.

The racing world would have been well advised to heed Whittingham’s maxim in May 2000, when a pair of 3-year-olds, Fusaichi Pegasus and Red Bullet, were being hailed as potential superstars. Fusaichi Pegasus was extolled as one of the best Kentucky Derby winners in decades. When Red Bullet, making only the fifth start of his career, upset Fusaichi Pegasus in the Preakness, racing fans assumed that he, too, had a brilliant future ahead of him.

How wrong everyone was.

Fusaichi Pegasus won only one race after the Derby, flopped badly in the Breeders’ Cup and was retired to stud before he could do any more damage to his reputation. Red Bullet hasn’t won a single stakes race since his day of glory at Pimlico. But unlike his contemporary, who ducked most challenges, Red Bullet is still trying to live up to his early promise, and he will be a slight favorite in Saturday’s $500,000 Grade I Donn Handicap at Gulfstream.

Red Bullet raced only once as a 3-year-old after the Preakness, and then was sidelined for more than a year by an assortment of physical problems, including a foot abscess and a cracked cannon bone. When he returned to competition last summer, his trainer, Joe Orseno, expected him to re-emerge as a major force and was aiming for the Breeders’ Cup.

But Red Bullet flopped so badly in a prep race, the Woodward Stakes, that he didn’t get to the Cup; he disappointed in the Cigar Mile, too. He launched his 2002 campaign in the Skip Away Handicap at Gulfstream last month against a field he figured to dominate, but he lost that one, too -- to the 9-year-old Sir Bear.

Ever optimistic, Orseno thinks Red Bullet is finally ready to fire his best shot. “He’s been training very well since the Skip Away,” the trainer said. “I think having that race under him will do a lot of good. He’s healthy and is doing just fine. He should run a very good race in the Donn.”

If Red Bullet is ever going to add another Grade I stakes to his resume, this is a good spot to do it. The older horses in the United States this year appear to be a pitifully weak group, and there are few bona fide Grade I horses in the Donn lineup. The best of the challengers appear to be Graeme Hall, who developed into a top runner in New York in the fall; Pleasant Divorce, an impressive performer at Laurel this fall; and Hal’s Hope, trained by 90-year-old Harold Rose, who won the 2000 Florida Derby.

After three straight unexceptional performances since his comeback, there is too much evidence that he is not going to be the star that that the racing world had expected. What went wrong?

It is quite possible that Red Bullet’s various physical problems took a toll on him. But it is more likely that we all misevaluated him in the first place.

American racing has suffered from such a shortage of great horses in recent years that fans are eager to hail a new star. We all tend to get excited prematurely. But when horses such as Red Bullet come alone, we might be wise to remember the wisdom of Charlie Whittingham.