Merry-Go-Round Derby 128 One Of The Few That Didn't Live Up To The Hype
By, William F. Reed
May 5, 2002

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (May 5, 2002) -- The morning after the 128th Kentucky Derby (GI), War Emblem looked as if all he did on Saturday, May 4, was take an easy jog around the Churchill Downs track instead of running the most coveted mile and a quarter in the sport. Between nibbles on a bail of hay hung outside his stall door, the dark bay, virtually black, colt gazed quizzically, but calmly, at the folks who came by to snap his photo.

Only Jill Moss, fiancee of trainer Bob Baffert, was brave enough to pet the Derby winner on his nose, which is bisetced by a white blaze. The colt can be so onery sometimes that everybody in Baffert's barn gives him a wide berth. But he likes Jill, at least partly because she brings him carrots and mints, so he allows her to take liberties that others take only at the risk of being bit.

"He can be tough to handle," Baffert said. "He'll bite you if he gets the chance. Jill's the only one that he'll let mess around with him."

In the Derby, he and jockey Victor Espinoza didn't let anyone get close to them, much less mess around with them, going wire-to-wire in one of the rare Derbys that didn't live up to its pre-race hype. It was supposed to be a wide-open Derby, with any of 10 or 12 horses having a legitimate chance to win. Instead, it was as suspenseful as a basketball game between the Harlem Globetrotters and the Washington Generals.

It wasn't a horse race as much as a merry-go-round, with the top three horses - War Emblem, Proud Citizen, and Perfect Drift - pretty much staying in that order the entire race. D. Wayne Lukas, trainer of runner-up Proud Citizen, gave Espinoza credit for doping out the race perfectly.

"I said before the race that if War Emblem got loose on the lead, he might not get caught," Lukas said. "I told my jockey (Mike Smith) to not let War Emblem get away from him and don't worry about anything coming from behind. There were supposed to be a lot of 'closers' in this race, but that wasn't the case. They had been closing in very slow times and passing a lot of tired horses."

Lukas, who has won the Derby four times, also felt Baffert, his annual rival for "Most Quotable Trainer" honors, didn't deserve to be criticized for winning the Derby with a colt he didn't develop. After War Emblem's easy win in the Apr. 6 Illinois Derby (GII), owner Russell Reineman sold him for a reported $1 million to Prince Ahmed bin Salman of Saudia Arabia, who gave him to Baffert with instructions to get him ready for the Derby.

"That might take a little of the shine off it," Lukas said, "but I'll take one like that anytime, under any conditions."

Indeed, buying players late in the season to help win pennants and playoffs has been commonplace in most professional team sports for years. In the 1950s and '60s, the now-defunct Kansas City Athletics sold or traded so many good players to the New York Yankees that they said to be little more than a Yankees' farm team.

Even in Derby history, it's hardly unprecedented for a wealthy individual to own to buy all, or part, of a proven horse in a last-minute attempt to win the roses. In 1978, for example, Hoist the Silver was turned over to trainer R.J. "Dick" Fischer three weeks before the Derby, where he finished eighth to Affirmed.

The day before the 1981 Blue Grass Stakes (GI) at Keeneland, breeder John Gaines and a partner shelled out $5 million for a half-interest in Proud Appeal. That colt won the Blue Grass and, along with stablemate Golden Derby, went off as the favorite in Louisville. He finished 18th to Pleasant Colony.

Gaines made another such move in 1998, when he bought a big part of Indian Charlie just before the Santa Anita Derby (GI). That colt won the Santa Anita Derby so impressivlely that partner Hal J. Earnhardt insisted he wear Gaines' silks in the Derby. He ran credibly, but still finished third to stablemate Real Quiet.

After Mister Frisky won his first 13 starts in Puerto Rico, owner Jose Fernandez sent the colt to California so Laz Barrera could train him for the Derby instead of Juan Rodriguez, the trainer who had developed him. The colt won his first three starts under Barrera, who had won the Derby with Bold Forbes in 1976 and Affirmed in '78.

At Churchill Downs, the Derby Day crowd sent off the unbeaten "Puerto Rican Comet" as the 6-5 favorite in the 15-horse field. Alas for his backers, however, he staggered home eighth in the race won by Unbridled.

In the 1992 Derby, the favored Arazi finished eighth to Lil E. Tee. The previous fall, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum had paid $9 million for a half-interest in Arazi after that colt's stunning performance in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile (GI) at Churchill.

Seventh in that same Derby was Dr Devious, who was sold for $2.5 million to Sidney Craig in late April so he could give his wife, diet-salon maven Jenny, a Kentucky Derby entrant as a birthday present.

Then, in 1998, Jenny Craig was back on the Derby scene as half-owner of Rock and Roll, another colt who had a, um, slim chance. She and Madeline Paulson purchased the colt after his third-place finish in the Mar. 22 Tampa Bay Derby. In the Kentucky Derby (GI), Rock and Roll slow-danced to a 14th-place finish in a 15-horse field.

When all this was mentioned to Baffert, he nodded and said, "Yeah, it's been done before, buying a horse to run in the Derby, but the difference is that we won it."

Baffert said he was thrilled with the way War Emblem trained at Churchill Downs, but didn't say much about it because "I didn't want to tip off our competition." That bit of secrecy succeeded as fully as his clandestine plan to enter Danthebluegrassman at the last moment backfired on him.

First, he was criticized for using Danthebluegrassman to knock Windward Passage out of the 20-horse Derby field on the basis of more earnings in graded stakes races. Then, he was pilloried again when he scratched Danthebluegrassman the morning of the Derby because of muscle spasms.

This morning, however, Baffert looked like the sharpest - or, if you prefer, the luckiest - trainer on the backside of Churchill Downs.

Now he'll take War Emblem to the Preakness Stakes (GI) on Sat., May 18, to see if he can get the second leg of racing's Triple Crown. You can bet that War Emblem will go off as the favorite instead of a 20-1 longshot, that his rivals will see to it that he doesn't get an easy lead, and that Baffert will have to answer more questions about Prince Salman simply buying a Derby winner.

But yesterday, in the warm afterglow of his third Derby victory, Baffert made an interesting point. The colt's previous owner, Russell L. Reineman, had said War Emblem would skip the Derby because he wasn't good enough.

"People ought to thank us for buying him and bringing him here," Baffert said. "If it hadn't been for us, he wouldn't have even been here. We just got lucky we bought this horse. If anybody else - Lukas or Godolphin Stables or anybody - had known about it, they would have bought him, too."

Native Kentuckian William F. "Billy" Reed has been a sports writer in various capacities for 42 years and has missed covering the Kentucky Derby a mere two times since 1966. He has been a high-profile sports writer in Kentucky for the Commonwealth's two largest daily newspapers, the Louisville Courier-Journal and the Lexington Herald-Leader and was a national columnist for Sports Illustrated, covering among other sports, Thoroughbred horse racing and college basketball. Reed currently pens a column for the Louisville Sports Report , contrbiutes features to the Keeneland program and will be, among varied other assignments, filing Kentucky Derby installments on www.kentuckyderby.com.

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