Longden, Nerud Still Among the Favorites

On the phone from New York, John Nerud was discussing John Longden. Two of racing’s most celebrated Johns are February birthday boys. Nerud will be 90 on Sunday. Longden must wait until Friday -- Valentine’s Day -- before hitting 96.

“I got to know John around the time he got married the second time,” Nerud was saying. “It must have been the 1930s, because I remember Seabiscuit and horses like that were running.

“The thing I liked about Longden was that he wouldn’t cheat you. I mean, if he rode for you, he’d let your horse run. That wasn’t always the case back then. There was an awful lot of gambling, so you never knew. [Estes] Kefauver, the senator, came along [in the 1950s], and came down hard on the bookmakers. Today, racing’s the cleanest game in town.”

Nerud and Longden have both been enshrined in the Racing Hall of Fame in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. Longden went in as a jockey in 1958, eight years before he rode his last race, and Nerud, who won more than 1,000 races and saddled champions Dr. Fager, Ta Wee and Dr. Patches, joined the trainers’ wing in 1972.

Longden was to the Kentucky Derby what Nerud was not. After riding Count Fleet to a Triple Crown sweep in 1943, Longden won the Derby again, as a trainer, with Majestic Prince in 1969.

Nerud, whose canon has been not to put a horse in the Derby unless a mile and a quarter won’t break him down, trained only one Derby starter, the hard-luck Gallant Man, who lost by inches to Iron Liege in 1957 when his jockey, Bill Shoemaker, stood up prematurely in the irons.

That day, Nerud cried a little in his box seat, then found the nearest bar at Churchill Downs and ordered the biggest glass of vodka they had. Without asking, the bartender began twisting a lemon peel into the drink.

“If I’d wanted lemonade,” Nerud said, stopping the man in mid-twist, “I’d have ordered one.”

Nerud can still talk the talk, but his wife, Charlotte, is not well, and neither is Longden, the only horseman to win the Derby from the saddle as well as out of the barn. Longden suffered a stroke last year, and recently there was the death of his son Vance, also a successful trainer.

A few old-timers have made the trip to Banning to see Longden, who is hard-pressed just to say the name of the horse in the portrait that hangs over his bed. It’s Majestic Prince.

Nerud, on the other hand, still breeds and races horses, and even manages a farm in upstate New York. He won a maiden race at Aqueduct the other day, with a colt he had bred, and drove home to Long Island afterward.

“I still know my name, and I can find my way home,” Nerud said. “The horses are still important. They keep the phone ringing, and that’s a sound I like to hear.”

He came from Nebraska, where at 13 he left the family farm to ride Roman-style -- standing in the irons -- on the Wyoming-Montana rodeo circuit, and Nerud has always had an eye for a good horse. When Texan Ralph Lowe bought a draft of horses from the Aga Khan, Gallant Man was a throw-in. In California as a 2-year-old, Gallant Man was a better bet to finish last than first, but once the sore-footed colt arrived in New York, Nerud quickly turned him around. The first time he won for his new trainer, Gallant Man paid $95.90 for a $2 win bet. Lowe, through a bookie, had bet $3,000 across the board.

Nerud named his fastest horse in honor of Charles Fager, the Boston brain surgeon who patched up the trainer after his pony threw him one morning.

“Doc, I appreciate what you done, and one of these days I’m going to name a horse after you,” a recuperating Nerud told Fager. “It won’t just be another horse, either. It’ll be a good one.”

Among other things, Dr. Fager, carrying 134 pounds, ran a mile in 1:34 1/5 at Arlington Park in 1968, a time branded into racing’s record book.

As an owner, Nerud won the second Breeders’ Cup Mile ever run, with Cozzene in 1985. The trainer was daughter Jan Nerud.

“I bred the horse, and I bred the trainer,” John Nerud said. “That made it a real family affair.”

In effect, Nerud was one of the breeders of the Breeders’ Cup, helping John Gaines and others launch the enormously successful series, despite much resistance and bickering in the mid-1980s. Now, the best the Breeders’ Cup has for Nerud is the title of director emeritus, which might be the safest approach for the board proper. Nerud wouldn’t be voting for some of the so-called improvements that have come along recently.

“They’re calling it the World Thoroughbred Championships now?” Nerud said Friday. “Where do they get off with that? They’re great races, but World Thoroughbred Championships? If they’re championships, then I guess Volponi [longshot winner of last year’s Breeders’ Cup Classic] is the champion. That’s a bunch of bull, and that’s the politest thing I can say about that.”

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After running his last three races on grass, Man Among Men switched to dirt and beat the 2-5 favorite, Empire Maker, by a length in the Sham Stakes at Santa Anita. Ridden by Alex Solis, trainer Gary Mandella’s colt won for the third time in five starts. Mandella wasn’t sure whether he’d ship the son of Gentlemen out of town or keep him at Santa Anita for his next race.

Corona Cool, a 6-year-old quarter horse mare who was a champion 2-year-old filly and best aged mare during a 27-race career, has been retired. Owned by Dan Lucas and trained by Donna McArthur, Corona Cool was ridden by Sam Thompson in all but one of her races. She won 14 times, including eight stakes and six Grade I races. She earned almost $1.3 million, which ranks her 12th on the money list and third among distaffers, behind Dashingly, $1.7 million, and Corona Cash, $1.5 million.