Upset Has an Irish Tenor

Down on the track, where 11 minutes seemed to turn into hours, Jose Valdivia Jr. stood at the finish line, not far from where Castledale’s head had made the difference in the $750,000 Santa Anita Derby.

Ridden by Valdivia, Castledale had finished first after 1 1/8 miles, but there was a slam-bang three-horse finish, and upstairs, on the sixth floor, the three Santa Anita stewards were trying to sort out a possible disqualification.

“What are they waiting for?” Valdivia said. “My horse is about 14 hands [56 inches tall], and the other horse [Rock Hard Ten] is 16 hands. If my horse had bumped that other horse, I would have wound up in the middle of the track. This is like a reality [TV] show. Is ESPN still on live?”

After a stewards’ inquiry and a foul claim against Castledale by David Flores, the rider of Rock Hard Ten, they made a change in the order of finish all right, but Castledale’s owners -- Greg Knee and Frank Lyons -- and Valdivia were safe. Their pint-sized Irish-bred colt, running for only the third time in the U.S., pulled off the fifth biggest upset in the 67-year history of the race, paying $62 for $2 before a crowd of 36,155.

The stewards -- Ingrid Fermin, Pete Pedersen and Tom Ward -- deliberated about disqualifying both Castledale and Rock Hard Ten. The second-place finisher hit the wire two lengths ahead of Imperialism, who was almost sent over the rail as his opening vanished. The stewards made Rock Hard Ten the culprit, dropping him down to third place and moving Imperialism up to second.

All three of those horses are expected to move on to the Kentucky Derby on May 1, a race that gets more inscrutable with every prep that’s run. The Santa Anita Derby might have clarified matters, but there were Wimbledon and St Averil, the favorites in the betting, running a respective fifth and sixth in the seven-horse field.

“It’s a wide-open year,” said Lyons, who trained Desert Stormer, winner of the 1995 Breeders’ Cup Sprint, four years before he took a full-time job as a racing commentator for the Television Games Network. “Our horse probably won’t get much respect in Kentucky, either, but I don’t mind coming in under the radar. One thing I know is that this is a very good horse.”

Castledale, whose time was 1:49 1/5, had run seven times in Lyons’ native Ireland before the ex-trainer bought him privately in September. Under Jeff Mullins in California, Castledale won his second career race, the Generous Stakes on the grass at Hollywood Park in November, before finishing sixth in his first start on dirt in the San Rafael at Santa Anita. Lyons said that his horse was only about 70% of himself that day. A month later, Castledale gave Mullins his second straight Santa Anita Derby win. The 41-year-old trainer won last year with Buddy Gil.

Rock Hard Ten may have lost for the first time in three tries, but his Santa Anita Derby performance positions the big colt for a Kentucky Derby start. Quintons Gold Rush was the leader at the top of the stretch, before Rock Hard Ten and Castledale, who was extremely wide, surged past.

Flores was displeased with the stewards’ decision.

“Well,” he said, “with the stewards, you don’t know what they’re going to do.”

Pedersen, the senior steward, explained what they did.

“You don’t want to disturb the order of finish in a big race like this, but in the final analysis you still have to treat it like any other race,” he said. “There’s no doubt that [Imperialism] was interfered with. The rider [Victor Espinoza] had to check through four or five jumps. Then it was a question of whether both horses caused the interference, or just one. The winner didn’t come in or change lanes, so we left him up.”

If there was any contact between Castledale and Rock Hard Ten, it was only a brush. Mullins thought Valdivia had his mount under control at all times, even though the rider lost his whip at about the eighth pole.

This has hardly been a stellar meet for Valdivia, whose biggest previous win was with Val Royal in the 2001 Breeders’ Cup Mile. At Santa Anita this winter, Valdivia once rode in 73 races without a winner.

With a record like that, the jockey calls the trainer for a mount, not the other way around, and that’s what happened with Castledale, who had been ridden by the currently injured Julie Krone in the Generous and by Flores in the San Rafael.

“Flores took the call, but then he spun [dropped] me to ride Rock Hard Ten,” Mullins said. “We tried to get [Northern California kingpin] Russell Baze to ride, but his daughter was getting married [Saturday night], and he couldn’t come. I got a call from Jose [Wednesday morning], and gave him the mount.”

Valdivia, 29, had ridden in only one other Santa Anita Derby and has never ridden in the Kentucky Derby.

“I noticed that all the other jocks had either locked up mounts or were out of town,” Valdivia said. “I guess I’m going to have to send a thank-you note to Russell Baze.”

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Santa Anita Derby Double

With Castledale’s victory Saturday, Jeff Mullins became the sixth trainer to win the Santa Anita Derby in successive years:

*--* JEFF MULLINS YEAR HORSE JOCKEY OWNER TIME ODDS 2004 CASTLEDALE Jose Lyons and Knee 1:49 1/5 30-1 Valdivi a Jr. 2003 BUDDY GIL Gary Desperado Stables, 1:49 1/5 6-1 Stevens McFadden, et al

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*--* BOB BAFFERT 1999 GENERAL Gary Stevens Golden Eagle Farm 1:48 4/5 5-2 CHALLEN GE 1998 INDIAN Gary Stevens Earnhardt and Gaines 1:47 9-5 CHARLIE Racing Stable

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*--* WAYNE LUKAS 1983 MARFA Jorge Velasquez French, Beal and 1:49 2/5 7-2 Lukas 1982 MUTTERING Laffit Pincay Tartan Stable 1:47 3/5 9-2 Jr.

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*--* ROBERT WHEELER 1960 TOMPION Bill Shoemaker C.V. Whitney 1:47 4/5 2-1 1959 SILVER SPOON Ray York C.V. Whitney 1:49 7-5

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*--* MESH TENNEY 1956 TERRANG Bill Shoemaker Rex Ellsworth 1:51 8-5 1955 *SWAPS John Longden Rex Ellsworth 1:50 7-2

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*--* JIMMY JONES 1953 CHANLEA Eddie Arcaro Calumet Farm 1:49 4/5 5-2 1952 *HILL GAIL Ted Atkinson Calumet Farm 1:50 9-2

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*won Kentucky Derby