THOROUGHBRED RACING : Derby Is a Magnet for Odd Entries

Goofball horses that have run--or tried to run--in the Kentucky Derby wouldn’t fill a book, but they would be good for a lengthy chapter.

Add to that chapter the name of Big Al’s Express, who has been at Churchill Downs since last Friday, amusing reporters for the May 4 Derby, giving track starter Tom Wagoner something extra to do and distracting Derby trainers who already have more than their quota of distractions.

Big Al’s Express is here by way of Stockton, by way of Bakersfield, by way of New Mexico and Oklahoma and all the other stops along a four-day van ride that covered about 2,500 miles.

The truck pulling the van for Big Al’s Express broke down in Bakersfield and after an overnight stay Thomas Allen--for whom Big Al is named--made other arrangements. Allen, 48, is Big Al’s Express’ trainer, co-owner and van driver, and he pulled in here with his horse last Friday night.

Allen and his partner, a Stockton steelworker named Juan Medina, paid $600 this year to make Big Al’s Express eligible for the Triple Crown races, and they intend to run him in the Derby.

Big Al’s Express is a maiden, a horse who has never won a race, but that’s only the half of it. “This horse is a maiden maiden,” Wagoner said, referring to the colt’s never having run in a race.

Because of his inexperience, Big Al’s Express has spent the last two mornings in the starting gate, so Wagoner can determine whether the colt knows enough to run Saturday in the one-mile Derby Trial, which opens the season at Churchill Downs.

On Wednesday, Big Al’s Express flunked his test. He sat down in the gate for several minutes. The horse’s behavior reminded Wagoner of a 1,000-pound goose.

Wagoner gave Big Al’s Express another chance Thursday morning and he did much better. Wagoner issued a provisional gate card, which enabled Allen to enter the colt in the Trial, a $75,000 race. Allen has to bring Big Al’s Express back this morning for another gate audition, which he must pass in order to run.

Maidens have run in the Derby. Trainer Bobby Frankel started one last year for owner Bruce McNall, but at least Pendleton Ridge had run three times before finishing 13th in the Derby. Three maidens--Buchanan in 1884, Sir Barton in 1919 and Brokers Tip in 1933--won the Derby, and Sir Barton was the first horse to sweep the Triple Crown.

When Big Al’s Express pulled his sit-down in the gate Wednesday, several other Churchill Downs trainers were in the clockers’ stand on the backstretch, stopwatches in hand. They had to time this horse themselves to believe it.

“Maybe he’ll be another Phar Lap,” said one of them, Forrest Kaelin, referring to the storied horse from Australia who came to Caliente to win a big race in the 1930s.

Big Al’s Express ran like Phar Naught. His time was 1:31 for seven furlongs. Camels can do better.

“I hope that horse doesn’t run in the Derby,” said Murray Johnson, who may start Green Alligator, the California Derby winner, a week from Saturday. “He could cause other horses to get injured, or he might get in the way of a horse and hurt his chances.”

Allen has been looking for a Derby horse since he saw Spend A Buck, a colt from the wrong side of the tracks, win here in 1985. A son of Bear Hunt and Happy Peace, a Hold Your Peace mare, Big Al’s Express is a Maryland-bred who was purchased by Allen last year for a price that his owners aren’t disclosing.

There are a lot of things that Allen, a tall, slump-backed man with a wild, wispy set of gray mutton-chop sideburns, won’t disclose. He says he is an experienced trainer, but records show him starting only two horses in the last 15 years, and one of those didn’t finish the race. To show that he can win with longshots, he says he once trained a horse that paid $117 for $2, but pressed for details, he says, “Let’s just leave it like that.”

Last year, Allen’s California trainer’s license was suspended for almost nine months in connection with some broodmares that were maltreated off race track grounds, but this year he has been reinstated. Allen denies culpability for the charges that brought the suspension.

Allen says that Big Al’s Express works like an antelope, and only a cold kept the trainer from running him in the San Rafael Stakes and Santa Anita Derby this year. The most recent Daily Racing Form workout shows Big Al’s Express going an ordinary six furlongs in 1:12 3/5 in March.

Big Al’s Express will be ridden by jockey Nate Condie, who has done most of his riding at California fairs, winning one stake and about 60 races since 1987.

Allen is unfazed by the snickers that greet his horse.

“I don’t care what people think,” he said. “You can’t take anybody’s thoughts to the bank. They’re going to have to catch my horse.”

This surreal scenario for the 117th Derby could have been borrowed from 1979, when Great Redeemer, winless in six races, came to Churchill Downs. The $2,100 purchase was owned by James A. Mohamed, an Army radiologist from Texas, who took out a trainer’s license when his regular trainer thought it was daft to run the horse in the Derby.

When Lot O’ Gold reached the finish line, a battery of photographers, who usually cross the track to get to the winner’s circle, started to make their way. Trouble was, Lot O’ Gold wasn’t the last horse to finish. Twenty-five lengths behind him--and 47 lengths behind the winner, Spectacular Bid--came Great Redeemer. To reach the finish line, Great Redeemer had to zigzag through the startled photographers.

Richard DePass rode Great Redeemer, for a $35 mount fee.

“I had never heard of the horse and never met the man that owned him,” DePass said. “But I would have rode a donkey just to get a chance to ride in the Derby.”

Horse Racing Notes

Sea Cadet, winner of the San Felipe at Santa Anita and third, behind Dinard and Best Pal, in the Santa Anita Derby, may be running in the Kentucky Derby, if trainer Ron McAnally can arrange a plane from California. Chris McCarron,scheduled to ride Dinard before the horse was injured, will have the mount on Sea Cadet. . . . Besides Big Al’s Express, the rest of the 12-horse field for Saturday’s Derby Trial includes Forty Something, Young Daniel, Broadway’s Top Gun, To Freedom, Discover, Honor Grades, Big Courage, Bobby M., Alydavid and the Wayne Lukas-trained entry of Romiano and Formal Dinner.

Green Alligator will work out this weekend and trainer Murray Johnson said he will wait until next Thursday--entry day--to decide whether to run in the Derby. . . . Nelson Fisher, 81, retired racing writer for the San Diego Union and former president of the National Turf Writers’ Assn., died last Sunday of cancer.