They Won’t Throw In Towel : Horse racing: Whittingham, Lukas say they will remain in the Derby hunt.

Mister Frisky might look as if he will never lose a race, and he is going to the Kentucky Derby with the deck stacked in his favor. But trainers of the three horses that finished behind him Saturday in the Santa Anita Derby aren’t giving up.

Video Ranger, who finished second 4 1/2 lengths behind Mister Frisky, is headed for the May 5 Derby, even though he has won only one race in six starts and has already had three trainers. Ian Jory, who saddled Video Ranger on Saturday, said that the horse will be sent to Churchill Downs in about two weeks and won’t run again until the Derby.

Warcraft, the third-place finisher, five lengths behind Mister Frisky, failed to fire after looming dangerously early in the race. Warcraft didn’t run as a 2-year-old but has run six times already this year. His trainer, Charlie Whittingham, has been a Derby fixture since 1986. He won that year with Ferdinand and last year with Sunday Silence. He said there is a 50-50 chance that Warcraft will run in the Derby without another race.

Real Cash, who led the Santa Anita Derby for the first six furlongs, was not as ready for the race as trainer Wayne Lukas said he should have been, and will get another chance in the Arkansas Derby at Oaklawn Park April 21. Lukas, who has started 15 horses in the Kentucky Derby since 1981, has two other possibilities: Land Rush, who will run Saturday in the Blue Grass at Keeneland, and Hail Atlantis, a filly whose schedule has been changed from the Arkansas Derby to the Fantasy, against other fillies, April 20. Lukas’ only Derby winner has been Winning Colors, a filly, in 1988.

Of the other four horses in the Santa Anita Derby, only Music Prospector is still being considered for the Kentucky Derby. Music Prospector, who finished sixth Saturday after racing close to the early pace, is headed for Kentucky and will use either the Lexington Stakes at Keeneland April 24 or the Derby Trial at Churchill Downs April 28 as his final prep.

Despite Mister Frisky’s 16-0 record and Summer Squall’s emergence as the best in the East, Whittingham and Lukas still have hope.

“It’s a long way from being a two-horse Derby,” Whittingham said. “There’s too much time before they run the race. Right now, though, I’d make Mister Frisky the favorite.

“I finished third with Ferdinand in the (1986) Santa Anita Derby, and he came back and won the Kentucky Derby. Santa Anita’s a speed track, and Mister Frisky is a speed horse. I’ll look at my horse for the next several days before I decide. I’m concerned about pushing him, because he has had a lot of races close together.”

Said Lukas: “There could still be a big surprise that wins there. Most of the trainers are trying to get their horses to improve, and it will be a question of whether a developmental horse can overcome the advantage that Mister Frisky, a dead fit horse, already has.”

Lukas first trained Video Ranger for Joe Allen, the New Yorker who bred the colt. A son of Cox’s Ridge, out of Vestris, a Nijinsky II mare, Video Ranger showed no signs of being a stakes horse and in his first race, for a $62,500 claiming price, ran 10th at Del Mar last September.

Video Ranger had physical problems and didn’t run again until Jan. 17 at Santa Anita. Winning by 13 lengths, he was claimed by trainer John Chlomos for $40,000. After Video Ranger ran third in an allowance race and second to Tsu’s Dawning in the Bradbury Stakes, his owner, Myung Kwon Cho, transferred his horses to Ian Jory.

Jory saddled Video Ranger for the first time when he ran seventh in the San Felipe Handicap.

“It has been difficult at Santa Anita for a horse to come from so far off the pace, as this horse must do,” Jory said. “A deeper track, like they have at Churchill Downs, should give him a better chance.”

Jory, 31, is an Englishman who used to work in California for trainer John Gosden. Video Ranger gave Jory his biggest purse Saturday, $100,000 for finishing second.