The ‘Mystery Horse’ Heads for Aqueduct : Capote Will Make His First ’87 Start in Gotham Stakes Saturday

Since Capote ran his first race, finishing 11th in a 12-horse field of maidens at Del Mar last September, the colt’s name has been misunderstood, his credentials have been impugned and his health has been doubted. Only the horse’s impeccable bloodlines have escaped scrutiny.

Justifiably, Capote has become the mystery horse among the candidates for this year’s Kentucky Derby. Whereas some Derby hopefuls have already run four or more races as 3-year-olds, Capote’s activity has been limited to long gallops and several three- to six-furlong workouts at Hollywood Park.

After winning the $1-million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Santa Anita last November, Capote was the clear-cut winner of the 2-year-old colt championship, but future-book oddsmakers and Kentucky Derby pollsters have been perplexed in evaluating him this year.

In both the Caliente and Nevada future books, Capote opened as the nominal 6-1 Derby favorite. Then when horses such as Masterful Advocate, Talinum, Bet Twice and Demons Begone began winning as 3-year-olds, and with Capote still only in light training, confidence in trainer Wayne Lukas’ horse flagged.

In the Caliente, Masterful Advocate is favored at 9-2 with Capote at 5-1, and Las Vegas has made Masterful Advocate the 6-1 favorite to Capote’s 8-1. In the first Kentucky Derby poll by the Louisville Courier-Journal, Capote was listed sixth.

Lukas, who despite great success since switching from quarter horses to thoroughbreds in 1978 has been no better than third with nine Kentucky Derby starters, has added to the Capote mystery by training him at Hollywood Park. Most of the activity is at Santa Anita, where the racing season is going on, and only overflow horses are training at Hollywood.

What’s more, a typical workout for Capote is at 5:30 in the morning, hardly a time for the horse to draw a crowd. These training tactics have fueled rumors that Lukas may be hiding something. Lukas, however, has always preferred crack-of-dawn workouts for his horses, because he believes that the track is fresh and better then. And he said that he moved Capote to Hollywood because Santa Anita’s track turns into a mess when it rains.

This week, however, the mystery horse goes public. On Tuesday, Capote, accompanied by Lukas, was put on a plane for New York, where he will make his debut as a 3-year-old Saturday in the one-mile Gotham Stakes at Aqueduct.

The plan after that is to run Capote in the 1 1/8-mile Wood Memorial at Aqueduct, which would be the colt’s only other start before the Kentucky Derby May 2.

Back from a five-month layoff, Capote won’t even be the favorite in the Gotham. That role will go to Gulch, even though Capote beat him twice last fall, when Gulch came to Santa Anita with an unbeaten record in New York. Gulch didn’t come close to beating Capote, though, running second in the Norfolk Stakes and fifth in the Breeders’ Cup.

But Gulch has already won at seven furlongs at Aqueduct this year, and the mile, rather than the longer races that tripped him up at Santa Anita last year, seems to be an advantageous distance.

So for the fifth straight race, Capote will be considered less than a cinch by the bettors. He went off at 3-1 or higher in his first four starts, and in the Breeders’ Cup he was a virtual co-favorite with Gulch, even though he had beaten the New York horse by almost two lengths at the same 1 1/16 miles over the same track three weeks earlier.

THE NAME

For many people, Capote’s name has also been less than a cinch.

There was a widespread assumption that he was named after Truman Capote, the late jockey-sized writer. Actually, Capote was named by one of his owners, Bob French of Midland, Tex., after a nearby mountain that has the shape of a capote , which is a bullfighter’s cape.

THE BREEDING

Capote is a son of Seattle Slew, the 1977 Triple Crown champion, and Too Bald, a stakes winner who has produced four stakes winners, including Exceller, who won eight major races and defeated Seattle Slew after a determined stretch duel in the 1978 Jockey Club Gold Cup at Belmont Park.

When Lukas appraises yearlings, he gives them a numerical rating, based largely on conformation. The only horse that has ever ranked as high as a 9 on the Lukas scale is the Nijinsky II-My Charmer colt who was sold at Keeneland in July of 1985. The horse, later named Seattle Dancer, was bought by England’s Robert Sangster and partners for a record $13.1 million. A Lukas group stopped bidding at $13 million, although French, an oil and cattle man, said that he was prepared to go to $15 million.

At the same sale, there were two yearlings that Lukas rated as 8s, one of them being Capote. Lukas was surprised that his group was able to buy Capote for only $800,000. The owners of the colt include French and Barry Beal, another Midland oil and cattleman, and Gene Klein, former owner of the San Diego Chargers.

Lukas has trained champion horses for all three men, the filly Landaluce for French and Beal, and Life’s Magic, Family Style and Lady’s Secret, 1986 horse of the year, for Klein.

THE CREDENTIALS

In Capote’s first race, at Del Mar last Sept. 1, he showed no interest in running. Capote beat only one horse in finishing almost 22 lengths behind the winner.

The next time out, a month later, Capote won by 11 lengths at Santa Anita. Still, he was the third betting choice in the Norfolk Oct. 11, behind Gulch and Qualify, winner of the Del Mar Futurity.

Capote led from the start to win, but all of the horses were tired through the stretch and the winning time of 1:45 2/5 was the slowest for a fast track in the 17-year history of the stake.

Facing much better horses in the Breeders’ Cup Nov. 1, Capote disposed of them much the way he had taken care of his rivals in the Norfolk, finishing 1 lengths ahead of runner-up Qualify. But the time of 1:43 4/5 was well off the track record of 1:40 1/5, and was three-fifths of a second slower than Brave Raj’s time in winning the race for 2-year-old fillies half an hour later.

Trainer Shug McGaughey, whose Polish Navy finished seventh in the Breeders’ Cup, was still not impressed by Capote’s performance.

“Capote has much to prove,” McGaughey was quoted as saying. “Who knows what (medication) he ran on in California?”

Lukas had seen the quote. “I’m surprised Shug would say anything like that, because I consider him a friend,” Lukas said. “And of all horses to be asking that about. This horse runs on nothing.”

THE ILLNESS

The Breeders’ Cup was Capote’s third race in a month and after the stake, Lukas immediately announced that the horse would be rested for his 3-year-old campaign and would not run in the $1-million Hollywood Futurity Dec. 14.

As it developed, Capote wouldn’t have been able to run in the Futurity, anyway, because he caught an intestinal virus that left him seriously ill for five days. It took another five days for him to shake off the after-effects.

Lukas says that Capote’s blood count was never abnormal and he never had a high fever. But some other precocious Lukas 2-year-olds, including Landaluce and Ketoh, have died, and the trainer’s credibility took a blow with Stalwart in 1982. California’s top 2-year-old in 1981, Stalwart suffered a tendon injury before he could run the next year and Lukas repeatedly dodged questions about the colt’s condition before finally announcing his retirement.

The rumors about Capote ranged from knee surgery to being deathly ill.

“He was sick, there’s no question about that,” Lukas said. “But as far as this year is concerned, I haven’t lost any time with him. I said that he’d get back into training around the first of January, and that’s exactly when he was back.”

About two months ago, an Englishman, through a Kentucky bloodstock agent, expressed an interest in buying a piece of Capote and the talking price for 50% of the horse was around $8 million. Lukas said that a team of vets was sent to examine Capote for almost three days and he was pronounced in perfect condition.

THE NEW PLAN

Lukas’ eight Kentucky Derby starters since 1981 have gone into the race with an average of almost five starts as 3-year-olds and more than 11 starts overall. In 1983, Marfa’s Derby was his 10th race of the year and he finished fifth at Churchill Downs.

Three Lukas horses--Partez, Total Departure and Althea--had made 13 starts apiece before the Derby. Lukas’ best finisher was his first Derby entrant, Partez, who was third in 1981. Lukas’ best Derby hopeful, who would later win the Preakness, was Codex, winner of the Santa Anita Derby but through an oversight not nominated for Churchill Downs.

This year, Lukas nominated 17 horses for the Triple Crown races and the three who will be running in Kentucky Derby preps this Saturday are all, by Lukas standards, lightly raced. Besides Capote, Talinum, winner of the Flamingo at Hialeah, will be making his fourth start of the year in the Florida Derby at Gulfstream Park. Goinforthebigone, a scheduled starter in the Santa Anita Derby, will be making the third start of his career--all in a span of 22 days.

Lukas says that his schedule for Capote would have been the same this year even if the colt had not been sick.

“I’ve changed my thinking about the Kentucky Derby,” he said. “Many of the horses I’ve sent there ran their best races the race before the Derby. I’m trying to plan it so that the best race is the race they’ve still got in them on Derby day.”

In 1982, Muttering won the Santa Anita Derby and was fourth in Louisville. Marfa, who finished a roughhouse second, beaten by a nose by Play Fellow, in the ’83 Blue Grass at Keeneland, ran fifth at Churchill Downs. In 1984 and ‘85, Althea and Tank’s Prospect, both winners of the Arkansas Derby at Oaklawn Park, were 19th and 7th, respectively, in the Derby. Last year, after winning the Flamingo, Badger Land was fifth in the Derby.

Perhaps Lukas is also thinking that what was good for Capote’s sire will work for Capote.

Seattle Slew was voted champion 2-year-old colt in 1976 after winning his only three starts. Then Slew raced only three times as a 3-year-old before winning the Derby.

The last of those three was the Wood Memorial, which, maybe not by coincidence, is the same race that is to be Capote’s Derby send-off later this month.