A Filly Runs Them Silly in Santa Anita Derby : Winning Colors Rolls to 7 1/2-Length Victory

After a while, it’s difficult for Wayne Lukas to avoid repeating himself. Lukas, who has failed with 12 starters in 7 years of his crusade to win the Kentucky Derby, is going back to Churchill Downs with another filly.

Lukas has played this song before. In 1984, he became the first trainer to start two fillies in the same Derby. Gloria Steinem probably applauded, but there were a lot of crushed mutuel tickets on the favored Lukas entry that day in Louisville, where Althea led for 6 furlongs and beat only one horse, with her stablemate, Life’s Magic, running eighth.

But as that big-band announcer used to say, this is an old song dressed up in brand new clothes. Winning Colors is a much bigger filly than Althea, bigger than most of her eight male opponents Saturday in the $500,000 Santa Anita Derby, and she was as big and strong as the Rock of Gibraltar crossing the finish line, outclassing the rest in a wire-to-wire, 7 1/2-length victory, the second-longest winning margin in the race’s 51-year history.

Winning Colors, ridden by Gary Stevens and owned by Gene Klein, who paid $575,000 for her as a yearling, follows Ciencia in 1939 and Silver Spoon in 1959 as the only fillies to win the Santa Anita Derby. A daughter of Caro and the Bold Hour mare, All Rainbows, Winning Colors will not run again until May 7, when she will try to join Regret (1915) and Genuine Risk (1980) as the only fillies to win the Kentucky Derby.

Lukas figures his chances with this roan are immensely better in Kentucky than they were with Althea and Life’s Magic. “We’ve got the time element going for us this time,” the trainer said. “This filly will have a full month before she runs back there. Althea was mind-boggling in winning the Arkansas Derby (in record time), but then she had to come back two weeks later and run in the Derby. She was a lot smaller and more delicate than this filly.”

Lively One, the second choice in a crowd of 47,470 Saturday, took the place by 1 lengths over Mi Preferido, who couldn’t match strides with the winner early and wound up 2 1/2 lengths ahead of Tejano, another Lukas trainee and the fourth-place finisher.

Charlie Whittingham trains Lively One, and Laz Barrera handles Mi Preferido. Both indicated that their horses will try again in the Kentucky Derby. Lukas said that Tejano might run in the Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland or the Derby Trial at Churchill Downs, both races the week before the Derby, and he’s also grooming Dynaformer in New York and Notebook in Arkansas to join Winning Colors in Kentucky.

On a track playing inordinately fast, Winning Colors ran 1 1/8 miles in 1:47 4/5, the fastest stakes time since Muttering, the second of Lukas’ four Santa Anita Derby winners, was timed at 1:47 3/5 in 1982. The stakes record of 1:47 is shared by Lucky Debonair in 1965 and Sham in 1973.

Winning Colors, earning $275,000 to increase her career total to $470,150, paid $7.20, $4 and $3.20. The other payoffs were $3.60 and $2.80 for Lively One and $3.40 for Mi Preferido.

Much was made before the race about how difficult it was to handicap, yet the public rated the first four finishers in the exact order at the windows.

Winning Colors stayed within her own division until Saturday, but when she beat Jeanne Jones and Goodbye Halo, two excellent fillies of Whittingham’s, in an 8-length rout in the Santa Anita Oaks about a month ago, Lukas knew it was time to aim at the colts. The Oaks gave Winning Colors four wins in five starts, the only loss coming by a neck to Goodbye Halo in February.

Before Saturday, Lukas resisted comparing Winning Colors with Lady’s Secret, the late-developing 4-year-old filly who was voted horse of the year in 1986. But he allowed that their running styles are similar.

“They both have tactical speed,” Lukas said. “If you try to run with them, you might not be around at the finish. And if you don’t go, they might gallop off from you.”

Barrera wanted his jockey, Chris McCarron, to take the lead with Mi Preferido, who was 4 for 5 before Saturday, but Winning Colors wouldn’t cooperate.

“My colt broke slow, and then Chris had to use him to stay close,” Barrera said. “We had to chase the filly because nobody else did. If we didn’t have to chase her, we get second.”

Winning Colors’ lead was always safe: 1 1/2 lengths after a half-mile, 2 1/2 after three-quarters and 7 lengths with an eighth-mile to run.

“She’s a monster,” said Klein, who’s having much more fun than he did when he owned the San Diego Chargers. “She put the colts away, and I don’t think there’s any question, but she’ll win the Kentucky Derby. She should sure be favored, at least.

“The colts tried, but they just couldn’t do it. The first turn, she had a length on them, then she increased it down the backstretch, and then away she went. Gary didn’t have to touch her, either.”

Randy Romero rode Winning Colors when she won her first start at Saratoga last August, and Stevens has been aboard ever since.

“I set her down at the half-mile pole and she exploded,” Stevens said. “She was just loafing, just galloping down the backstretch. At the three-eighths pole, she switched gears. I thought it would be a close finish. She had a lot of time off after the Oaks, and I thought that Mi Preferido would put enough pressure on her that somebody would be coming late.”

But there was nobody. Lively One, fifth after three-quarters of a mile, made a late move that was really only a pretense.

“At the three-eighths pole, I knew we were in good shape,” Lukas said. “Shoe (Bill Shoemaker, riding Lively One) had already drawn his (whip), and I knew we were all right, because he’s not one to be pumping that soon unless he’s in trouble.”

Lukas is not predicting victory in Louisville. He’s had too many up-the-track finishes there to do that.

“We might stub our toes in the Derby again,” Lukas said. “But with this filly, we’ll take a lot of the other horses down with us.”

Horse Racing Notes

After Gene Klein bought Winning Colors at auction, some of the reaction to the $575,000 price was negative. “They said we were crazy to pay that much for a filly by Caro,” Klein said. . . . Success Express, another Klein-Wayne Lukas 3-year-old, ran fourth Saturday in the Gotham at Aqueduct, but at Santa Anita they won another stake, the $60,000 Crowning Glory, with Blue Jean Baby, who made her first start since running poorly in the Breeders’ Cup. . . . Davie’s Lamb won the $78,750 Pink Pigeon at Santa Anita, holding off Nairobi Express by a nose. Davie’s Lamb ran a mile on the grass in 1:35 1/5, a fifth of a second off the track record. . . . Olympic Prospect, a 4-year-old gelding, won the 6-furlong seventh race in 1:08, which missed the track record by two-fifths of a second. . . . Silver Spoon finished fifth in the Kentucky Derby after winning the Santa Anita Derby. She was the last filly to run in the Kentucky Derby until Genuine Risk won the race 21 years later.