Horse Racing: The Munificent Obsession

• Share

The pickings were slim, Willie Shoemaker had to admit—but what was the nation's No. 1 jockey to do on May 1 except ride in the Kentucky Derby? Last week the Shoe decided that his Derby Day mount would be Ada L. Rice's Lucky Debonair, winner of last month's Santa Anita Derby. "He's a nice running horse," shrugged Willie. "Not big, but he gives you his best." Faint praise, maybe, but the bookmakers were impressed. They installed Lucky Debonair as the early favorite at 3-1 to win the 91st Run for the Roses.

That was probably the kiss of death. Over the past 15 years only three favorites have won at Churchill Downs. The wildest speculator on Wall Street would boggle at the boodle that has gone down the drain. Winning the Kentucky Derby may be every horseman's dream, but it is a munificent obsession.

Breaks of the Game. Promising yearlings sell for $20,000 up, and at last summer's Keeneland sales a colt was auctioned for $170,000. The horse has to be stabled, fed, trained to race; at big Eastern tracks that costs $15 a day. The vet collects $10 or so to give the animal an aspirin, and the blacksmith charges $18.50 for a set of shoes. A man could be out of pocket $100,000 or more by Derby time for his three-year-old. He then pays $100 for the original nomination, $250 to pass the entry box, another $1,250 to start. The winner's purse: about $115,000.

Some investment. More than 15,000 thoroughbreds are foaled in the U.S. each year, so the odds against any one winning the Derby are 15,000 to 1. Still, folks keep trying. Financier Louis Wolfson has been at it for years. In 1961 he had a top prospect in Roving Minstrel, but one day Roving Minstrel reared over backward, damaged his brain, and had to be destroyed. "The breaks of the game," sighed Wolfson, and coughed up $39,000 for another colt, Raise a Native. The horse won four races, smashed two track records —and broke down. Or consider the case of Christopher Chenery, utilities magnate, Derbyphile. On the day before the 1962 Derby, Chenery's Sir Gaylord was the 8-5 favorite. That same day he stepped into a hole on the track, broke a leg and retired to stud.

Chips & Splints. This year's casualties beat all. First there was Mary Hecht's Sadair, which won more money ($498,217) last year than any two-year-old in history; two months ago in Florida, Sadair cracked a bone in his foot. Then there was Bold Lad, brightest star in Mrs. Henry Carnegie Phipps's Wheatley Stable, the top money-winning stable in the U.S. ($1,073,572 in 1964). A son of Bold Ruler, "the fastest horse in the world up to nine furlongs," Bold Lad seemed like a chip off the old block when he won six stakes last year. He was, in more ways than one. All through his career, Bold Ruler was bothered by "splints"—painful, tumorlike growths on the shinbones. Bold Lad had barely started serious training for this year's Derby when he popped a splint on his right foreleg. A veterinarian "fired" him by jabbing an electric needle into the growth to reduce the swelling. A month later Bold Lad popped a splint on his left foreleg.