Horse Racing : Without a Chance, Gregson Not Interested in Just Running

The gossips--as plentiful as horseflies during any Kentucky Derby week--are saying that trainer Charlie Whittingham, at 75, has come down with a bad case of Derby fever.

He professes not to know what that malady is, but the facts are clear. After running a horse in the 1960 Derby, Whittingham didn’t return until 26 years later. He won that race with Ferdinand in 1986, and he’s been back here with horses twice more since. He was unable to start Temperate Sil last year because the horse got sick, but he is gearing up Lively One for Churchill Downs Saturday.

Whether that constitutes Derby fever is questionable, but it’s enough for the gossips.

One trainer who doesn’t have this malady, though, is Eddie Gregson, who by rights should have contracted it six years ago. He won the Derby with Gato Del Sol, the first horse he ever saddled here, and has had the chance to come back three times since.

A realist, however, in a business in which most of his peers walk around wearing rose-colored glasses, Gregson resisted two of the opportunities, probably not costing himself any added glory but perhaps losing some clients.

In 1986, Gregson was training a well-bred 3-year-old for a man named William Fleming. They weren’t sure what they had, because the colt had run only once as a 2-year-old. But in the spring of his Derby year, Icy Groom finished second to Snow Chief in the Santa Anita Derby and went off as the favorite a couple of weeks later in the Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland.

Icy Groom ran a dull fourth in the Blue Grass, a race that had set up Gato Del Sol nicely with a second-place finish four years earlier.

Fleming still wanted to run Icy Groom in the Derby. “My mind’s set on it,” he told Gregson.

“Mine isn’t,” Gregson replied.

Gregson hadn’t even been eager to run Icy Groom in the Blue Grass. “We had run second in the Santa Anita Derby, all right, but Snow Chief beat us by six lengths,” he said from Hollywood Park the other day. “Could we make up six lengths between Santa Anita and the Kentucky Derby? I didn’t think so.”

Another factor, as far as Gregson was concerned, was that Eddie Delahoussaye, the rider of Gato Del Sol and Icy Groom’s jockey in the Blue Grass, said that the horse had been coughing during the Keeneland race.

“I didn’t think there was any way to turn this horse around in the Derby,” Gregson said. “In effect, I resigned.”

Fleming hired Sam Ramer to saddle Icy Groom in the Derby. The horse finished eighth.

This year, Gregson was training horses for Sam Matar of Monterey, a newcomer to racing. One of them was All Thee Power, who had won two of five starts but was 42-1--the second longest price on the board--in the Santa Anita Derby.

All Thee Power finished 14 lengths behind Winning Colors, but Matar still wanted to run him in the California Derby and the Kentucky Derby after that. He told Gregson that he got into racing to run a horse in the Kentucky Derby.

“What were we going to accomplish by running in those two races?” Gregson asked. “We were going to face a horse who was going to be 8-5 (Charlie’s Notes) in the California Derby. I told the owner that we needed a long-range plan, and my recommendation was that we plan a turf campaign for the horse at Hollywood Park and Del Mar.”

Instead, Matar sent All Thee Power to Jack Van Berg, who entered him in the California Derby, which the horse won. So Gregson might have been half-wrong. But the colt broke his knee in the race, underwent surgery and has a doubtful future.

Since 1982 and Gato Del Sol, Gregson has returned to the Kentucky Derby only with Candi’s Gold, who ran eighth last year. Candi’s Gold had won two races as a 3-year-old, whereas Gato Del Sol hadn’t won any.

“Gato was crying to go a mile and a quarter (the Derby distance),” Gregson said. “The reason he hadn’t been winning was because of the speed bias at the California tracks. You should only be running a horse in the Derby if you think you’ve got a chance.”

Horse Racing Notes

When the field is drawn today for the 114th Derby, the horses with the least chance, in the estimation of Churchill Downs handicapper Mike Battaglia, will be Sea Trek, Din’s Dancer, Regal Classic and Purdue King. Battaglia will lump that quartet into the mutuel field, something that’s necessary when there are more horses running in a race than there is room on the tote board. One bet will cover all four horses Saturday. That’s quite a drop in stature for Regal Classic, from the odds-on favorite last week in the Blue Grass to a field horse Saturday. The last field horse who won the Derby was Canonero II in 1971.

There are three stakes races at Churchill Downs Friday, headed by the $200,000 Kentucky Oaks for 3-year-old fillies. Also scheduled are the $150,000 Louisville Budweiser Breeders’ Cup for fillies and mares, and the $150,000 Early Times Turf Classic for older males. . . . Charlie Whittingham and other trainers are happy that Winning Colors is running in the Derby instead of the Oaks. Whittingham is starting a pair in the Oaks--Goodbye Halo, the only horse that has beaten Winning Colors but a subsequent loser to her at a longer distance, and Jeanne Jones, winner of the Fantasy at Oaklawn Park in a stakes-equaling time.

A week from Saturday at Baltimore, Pat Day will ride Lost Code because Craig Perret is committed to Bet Twice in the $500,000 Pimlico Special at 1 3/16 miles. Alysheba will carry top weight of 127 pounds, with Lost Code assigned 126, Bet Twice 124 and Cryptoclearance 121. Ferdinand was also assigned 127 pounds, but he’s staying in California. . . . . All-day rain made Churchill Downs’ track sloppy Wednesday, but clearing is forecast, and temperatures in the 70s the next couple of days should make the track fast for Saturday.