It’s Derby That Rises in West

It all began with Hill Gail. A so-so runner with a so-so record, Calumet Farm shipped him West in the winter of 1952 because they thought he was the least of the great Bull Lea foals. He had a girl’s name and a boy’s stride. He didn’t have much to beat that year, but he made the history books when he became the first Santa Anita Derby winner to win the Kentucky Derby, too. The Kentucky Derby was 78 years old that year. The Santa Anita was 15.

It was a tough double. The Kentucky Derby belonged to the lordly picket-fence stables of the Long Island horsey set. Santa Anita Derby winners like Fairy Hill in 1937 went back to Louisville to finish a wobbly 11th. Santa Anita winner Porter’s Cap managed a fourth in his year at Louisville, but Bymeabond was sixth, Knockdown fifth and On Trust fourth, as was Old Rockport.

The nadir was probably reached in 1950 when the Louis B. Mayer-bred Your Host went back there with movie star credentials. Even the hardboots were impressed and they backed the “Hollywood” horse down to 8-5. Your Host led to the head of the stretch and then faded so badly he staggered in ninth beaten by 15 lengths.

The word went out in Kentucky that California tracks ran downhill, California clocks were all fast and their horses belonged on a sound stage not a race track. Custer probably had California horses.

Hill Gail did little to dispel that. He was an Establishment horse. Calumet was as un-Hollywood as you could get.

Even when Determine became the second Santa Anita winner in three years to win in Kentucky in ‘54, the negative stereotype persisted.

But when Swaps won the next year, the Jockey Club monocles popped out, the Vanderbilts and Phippses and Whitneys were shaken form their top hats to their spats. Swaps not only campaigned in California, he was born here. It was like an immigrant getting into Yale.

Swaps was a great golden chestnut owned and trained by two cowboys who looked as if they were right out of a Republic Pictures posse. And Swaps didn’t beat any field of graduate platers. Swaps beat a classic Kentucky Derby field. He ran away from the great Nashua in the stretch where California horses were supposed to fade off in the sunset. The elegantly bred Summer Tan was a well-beaten third.

That was a watershed year for California racing. It would be 10 years before another Santa Anita Derby winner would win at Churchill Downs, but four have won since.

The ultimate indignity for the Establishment came in ’82 when Gato Del Sol, a gray colt who had run down the track in the Santa Anita Derby nevertheless won the Kentucky by 2 1/2 lengths. Four years later, Ferdinand, who finished no better than third in Santa Anita’s Derby, won Kentucky’s by 2 1/4.

Affirmed was the only Santa Anita Derby winner to win the Triple Crown, although Alysheba and Sunday Silence won both the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness.

Three of the last four years, Santa Anita winners have won in Kentucky, and one of them was only the third filly in the long history of the race to win.

There is no move afoot to change the Kentucky to the California Derby. The classic route to the Derby used to go through New York’s Wood Memorial. But not since 1981 has a winner come from that race.

So, no one is overlooking or throwing out the calculations of the field of eight in this year’s Santa Anita Derby Saturday. As usual, the chalk horses for the Kentucky Derby represent the East and Old Racing--the precocious Fly So Free, winner of the Florida Derby, the Breeders’ Cup for 2-year-olds and seven of nine races, and Meadow Star, the unbeaten filly who may be the nearest thing to a female Man o’ War the clockers have seen. She is eight for eight and won the Breeders’ Cup for 2-year-olds, too--fillies division.

The West will put forth Allen Paulson’s Dinard, winner of three of four--and beaten by a nose in his only other start. Dinard will be bidding to become only the third gelding ever to win the Santa Anita Derby (and the first since 1940) and, if he goes to Kentucky, will be bidding to be only the eighth ever to win there (and the first since 1929).

Dinard will be asked to outrun a blue-ribbon field that includes Ron McAnally’s tailless scrapper, Sea Cadet, and Best Pal, the only local who has hooked up with Fly So Free--he was beaten by seven in the Breeders’ Cup.

No one is asking if California tracks run downhill anymore or if they should bring a sun dial to clock the horses when they get East of the Rockies. Kentucky pays as much attention to these Hollywood wise guys as it does to any other set of pickpockets who come to Churchill Downs the first Saturday in May to get rich.

No longer do the hardboots cackle, “Where’d you get him--Roy Rogers fall off him?” or, “Did you bring Shirley Temple to feed him sugar?” They bet them now, not boob them.