This Colt May Go Whole Hog

Nineteen of the horses in Saturday’s Kentucky Derby will be running for a purse of about $1.1 million. There’s an extra $5 million in the pot for Smarty Jones.

“If we win,” said Patricia Chapman, who owns Smarty Jones with her husband Roy. “The money wouldn’t change our lives at all. But it would be a nice cushion in our older age, wouldn’t it?”

Smarty Jones has won all six of his races, and is only the 10th unbeaten Derby horse with six wins or more.

Roy Chapman, who’ll be 78 next Tuesday and made most of his money selling cars, has been unable to fully savor the success he has had with the compactly built chestnut. Chapman, his wife said from their home on Boca Grande Island, near Sarasota, Fla., suffers from asthma, chronic bronchitis and emphysema.

When Smarty Jones won the Rebel Stakes at Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs, Ark., Chapman was in the hospital with pneumonia in both lungs. He gets around in a wheelchair and, with his wife, will be flown here today on a private jet. The Chapmans have never had a Derby starter, and watched previous runnings of the race on television.

The Rebel was win No. 5 for Smarty Jones, who then won the $1-million Arkansas Derby on April 10.

Since then, Charles Cella, the owner of Oaklawn, might have invested in a voodoo-doll likeness of the Chapmans’ colt. To jazz up his track’s 100th anniversary, the flamboyant Cella offered a $5-million bonus to the horse who swept the Rebel, the Arkansas Derby and the Kentucky Derby. Only half of the bonus is covered by insurance.

“The bonus wasn’t the reason we took the Arkansas route,” trainer John Servis said. “We went there because it looked like an easier path to the Derby.”

Servis, 45, became the trainer of the unraced Smarty Jones after the Chapmans’ longtime trainer, Bob Camac, was murdered in December 2001. Camac, who had spent $40,000 on behalf of the Chapmans to buy Smarty Jones’ dam, I’ll Get Along, in 1993, and his wife allegedly were shot by his wife’s son on the porch of their home.

The Chapmans, shocked and despondent over the deaths of the Camacs, were ready to get out of a business they had supported for about 15 years. I’ll Get Along was one of the many horses they sold. But George Isaacs, who manages Bridlewood Farm in Florida, advised the Chapmans that two young horses were worth keeping. One was Smarty Jones, the other was named Some Image.

“Some Image turned out to be the slow one,” Patricia Chapman said. “He broke his maiden, but he’s been retired and right now he’s waiting for a home. He’ll wind up with our daughter, who’ll try to make a show horse out of him.”

Smarty Jones, a foal of 2001, arrived Feb. 28, the same birthday as Patricia Chapman’s mother, who was called Smarty Jones by her grandparents. The son of Elusive Quality, a stallion Bob Camac was able to mate with I’ll Get Along, Smarty Jones was fast but unlucky. Last July, at Philadelphia Park, Servis was readying the horse for his first race when Smarty Jones reared in a training gate and suffered major injuries, including a fractured skull. He was bleeding from the nose and his left eye was swollen shut. There was massive swelling.

An emergency call was placed to Patty Hogan, a veterinarian at the New Jersey Equine Clinic, a 45-minute van ride from Philadelphia Park.

“When they brought the horse in, he looked horrible,” Hogan said. “He sure didn’t look like a horse who might ever race again. But he didn’t know he was hurt. He trotted into our place, dragging his handler.”

At the clinic, Smarty Jones got to be known as “Quasimodo.” In two weeks, he was patched up and sent back to Servis.

“He was spunky from the day he got here,” Hogan said. “Every time you’d go to his stall door, he’d be screaming for his next meal. He was a great patient.”

Smarty Jones also doesn’t know he’s a Pennsylvania-bred. If he did, he’d probably refuse to leave his stall at Churchill Downs on Saturday.

In 1992, when the sore-footed A.P. Indy was scratched and the heralded Arazi ran like a horse who’d had double knee surgery about six months earlier, Lil E. Tee became the first Pennsylvania-bred to win the Derby.

Only two Pennsylvania-breds have run since then in the Derby. Shammy Davis finished 12th in 1997 and High Yield ran 15th in 2000.

Pennsylvania’s breeders are showing a lot of cheek as they make the most of one of their rare chances at Churchill. Servis’ barn attire includes a baseball cap with this message:

Pennsylvania-bred

Smarty Jones

The real Philadelphia flyer

Smarty Jones might have come here without running in the more-prestigious prep races in California, Kentucky, New York and Florida, but he could go off the second choice, behind The Cliff’s Edge, winner of the Blue Grass Stakes.

“He buried those horses in Arkansas,” said trainer Bobby Frankel, who’ll try to win the Derby with Master David, the second-place finisher in the Wood Memorial at Aqueduct. “I think he’s the real deal.”

Like the colt’s owners and trainer, Smarty Jones’ jockey, Stewart Elliott, has no Derby experience. A jockey riding in his first Derby hasn’t won the race since Ronnie Franklin with Spectacular Bid in 1979, but this makes no difference to Servis, who has used Elliott in all of Smarty Jones’ races and has never wavered in his support of the 39-year-old Philadelphia Park rider.

The Canadian-born Elliott, whose father was a jockey and whose mother rode show horses, has won more than 3,000 races while competing on racing’s minor league circuits.

“Stewart’s very underestimated,” Servis said. “He’s found himself in Philadelphia. He might be a big fish in a small pond, but he’s ready to move on, to a major track. He should be able to go wherever he wants after this.”

Elliott, scheduled to arrive here today, is known for his dour demeanor. The day after he’d ridden Smarty Jones to victory in the Arkansas Derby, Sherry Servis, the trainer’s wife, was reading a local sports section.

“Hey, look,” she said to her husband. “They got a picture of Stewart smiling.”

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The undefeated Madcap Escapade is the 3-1 morning-line favorite in Friday’s Kentucky Oaks at Churchill Downs. The 12 3-year-old fillies will line up in this order: Ashado, Hollywood Story, Island Sand, Halfbridled, House Of Fortune, Madcap Escapade, Silent Sighs, Victory U.S.A., A.P. Adventure, Last Song, Class Above and Stellar Jayne.

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The forecast calls for a 30% chance of rain Friday, with a 40% chance and temperatures in the high 60s Saturday.

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A federal judge in Louisville said he would rule today on whether five jockeys would be allowed to wear advertising on their pants in the Derby.

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Undefeated Derby Starters

Since 1915, these undefeated horses have run in the Kentucky Derby:

*--* Year Horse Wins* DF 1915 Regret 3 1 1916 Thunderer 3 5 1922 Morvich 11 1 1940 Bimelech 8 2 1948 Coaltown 4 2 1953 Native Dancer 11 2 1963 Candy Spots 6 3 1963 No Robbery 5 5 1969 Majestic Prince 7 1 1977 Seattle Slew 6 1 1978 Sensitive Prince 6 6 1982 Air Forbes Won 4 7 1988 Private Terms 7 9 1990 Mister Frisky 16 8 1998 Indian Charlie 4 3 2000 China Visit 2 6 2000 Trippi 4 11

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*Pre-Derby wins; DF: Derby finish