An Upsetting Day in the Florida Derby : Mercedes Won Rolls as Favorite Goes Lame; Easy Goer Wins Swale

HALLANDALE, Fla. —  The Kentucky Derby lost two leading candidates Saturday--one broke down and the owner of the other isn’t interested--but Easy Goer, the consensus for Churchill Downs on May 6, continued on his inexorable run toward Louisville and destiny with a 3-year-old coming-out party that had everybody gaping.

Mercedes Won, a horse that cost $5,700 as a yearling, won the $500,000 Florida Derby by five lengths on a hot, humid day at Gulfstream Park, with Dixieland Brass, the 9-10 favorite, going lame with seven-eighths of a mile to go in what could be the last race of his career.

About 40 minutes later, Easy Goer, who hadn’t raced since his second-place finish in the Breeders’ Cup last November, overcame a slow start and won the $57,150 Swale Stakes by 8 3/4 lengths and in a time of 1:22 1/5, the fastest seven furlongs of the Gulfstream meeting.

After the Florida Derby, owner Chris Spencer and trainer Arnold Fink dismissed the Kentucky Derby for Mercedes Won, the Canadian 2-year-old champion who won for the first time in five starts this year after winning four stakes last year.

“A lot of horses aren’t around after they run in the Kentucky Derby,” said Spencer, a 25-year old Floridian who quit his job as a distributor of school and pet supplies after Mercedes Won won the Hopeful at Saratoga last August. “We’re more interested in seeing that this horse is still around to run as a 4-year-old (in 1990). We’re going to look for the easiest spots and the place where we can make the most money.”

Mercedes Won, a son of Air Forbes Won and Bye Bye Mercedes, finished second in the Fountain of Youth two weeks ago, but on Saturday the front-running colt and jockey Earlie Fires didn’t have to worry about Dixieland Brass overtaking them in the stretch. Randy Romero, Dixieland Brass’s jockey, sensed something was wrong and pulled the colt up on the backstretch.

Dixieland Brass was toward the rear of the 11-horse field at the time. Like many good horses, he didn’t know why Romero was discouraging him and tried to keep running. The colt went lame, but under his own power he returned to the barn, where an examination showed that he had suffered a career-ending tendon injury in the left foreleg.

There had been rumors late last week that Dixieland Brass had a sore ankle. Trainer Charlie Peoples and his owners said both before and after Saturday’s race that the horse was sound going into the race, but it seemed unusual to other horsemen that Dixieland Brass hadn’t had a workout since the Fountain of Youth.

“There’s no way you can bring a horse up to a mile and an eighth race just by galloping him,” said trainer Ron McAnally, who finished fourth in the Florida Derby with Hawkster.

After Mercedes Won came Western Playboy, sent off as a 31-1 shot by the record Gulfstream crowd of 33,864. The runner-up finished a neck in front of Big Stanley, who had 2 3/4 lengths on Hawkster. After the first four, the order of finish was Silver Sunset, Traskwood, Feather Ridge, Reaffirming, Crown Collection and Triple Buck.

Mercedes Won was timed in 1:49 3/5, a time comparable to winners of the stake in recent years. He earned $300,000, lifting his career total to $688,502. With a limited budget, Spencer had gone to a Keeneland auction and spent three frustrating days before he found Mercedes Won, a horse whose price he could afford.

Mercedes Won paid $32.00, $11.40 and $6.80. Western Playboy paid $23.20 and $9.80, and Big Stanley, who went off at 11-1, paid $6.40. A $2 perfecta on the first two finishers was worth $717, and a $2 trifecta on the first three horses paid $6,832.60.

Hawkster, the invader from California who went off at 5-1, the second choice behind Dixieland Brass, had good early position under Laffit Pincay. He was third behind Mercedes Won and Triple Buck after a half mile, moved up to second on the far turn and then flattened out. McAnally said that the deep running surface was his undoing.

Fires hit Mercedes Won three times right-handed and five times left-handed through the stretch. “This colt runs his own race and I let him do that,” Fires said. “The trainer advised me to let him run on if he felt like doing it, and that was about it. He did what I wanted him to do. He got an early lead and stayed in front.”

A year ago, Romero won the Florida Derby with Brian’s Time. The jockey thought Dixieland Brass had the quality to win the Kentucky Derby.

“I had great hopes that this was going to be a great horse,” Romero said. “At the start of the race, I thought he was acting funny because he got dirt in his face, but that wasn’t it, he was just uncomfortable, he wasn’t himself.

“It was the right thing to do, to get him out of the race when I did, because he wasn’t traveling well. He didn’t go lame until after I pulled him up. It took me forever to pull him up. But it was a blessing in disguise, because otherwise he would have run until he fell down.”

Easy Goer, who is trying to become the first 2-year-old champion to win the Kentucky Derby since Spectacular Bid in 1979, paid $2.60 in the six-horse Swale. Trion, a local horse from the $17,000 claiming ranks who had never run in a stake, blasted out of the gate running the first half mile in a ridiculously fast 44 3/4. Easy Goer was in third place, eight lengths behind, at that pole, but with little urging from jockey Pat Day, the Alydar colt swept past Trion on the turn. Easy Goer coasted home under a hand ride.

“He was hitting solid on all four feet,” Day said. “After he got moving, it was only a matter of how far he’d win by.”

Shug McGaughey, Easy Goer’s trainer, plans two more races--the Gotham and the Wood Memorial at Aqueduct--before the Kentucky Derby. “He made one great big bold move today,” McGaughey said. “I don’t see how he could have come back to the races any better.

Maybe Mercedes Won is being shortchanged and there’s no question that Dixieland Brass was unfortunate, but Easy Goer won’t have to worry about either of them anymore. Such a talented colt, he really didn’t have to worry about them in the first place.

Horse Racing Notes

Mercedes Won is scheduled to run next in the Tampa Bay Derby on March 19. Tampa Bay Downs is located in Oldsmar, Fla., home of the colt’s owner, Chris Spencer. . . . Pay the Butler, who came from California on the same plane as Hawkster, is scheduled to run Tuesday, closing day for Gulfstream, in the $300,000 Pan American Handicap.