Sport: Cavalry Charge

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Kentucky Derby officials would not be surprised if the Lone Ranger rode up this week to get Silver a special dispensation to race the three-year-olds in Saturday's Run for the Roses. Everyone else with a horse seems to want a slot in the starting gate this year. At last count there were about 35 horses headed for Churchill Downs—far more than the track can or cares to accommodate, particularly for the 100th running of the race.

The stampede to Louisville started because no clear favorite for the Derby turned up on the winter racing circuit. Of 32 pre-Derby tests for three-year-olds run by late April, 27 were won by different horses. Hence many owners are willing to put up the necessary $7,600 in Derby entry and starting fees in the hope of getting lucky.

Official Shivers. Protagonist, last year's two-year-old champion and early Derby favorite, had not won a race since November going into last Saturday's Stepping Stone Purse at Churchill Downs. Agitate took the California Derby two weeks ago, but could not finish better than third at the Santa Anita Derby several weeks earlier. When there seemed to be a chance to narrow down the Derby field in the Wood Memorial in New York in mid-April, that race had to be split into two sections to handle the overflow of entrants. One winner, Rube the Great, is considered a strong Derby contender, but the other, Flip Sal, is largely untested. The only horse to show solid promise thus far is Judger, winner of the Florida Derby and the Blue Grass Stakes with come-from-behind spurts down the homestretch.

After 99 years of single blessedness, the prospect of running two sections at tradition-steeped Churchill Downs gives race officials the shivers. To avoid a double Derby, officials are ready to try everything from friendly persuasion with trainers and owners to imposing severe veterinarian inspections that would bar all but the soundest horses. That and other measures were under consideration last week in order to hold the field to 26, the maximum the track can handle.

But even if the race is limited to 26 horses, the Derby could be an untamed affair. Lucien Laurin, trainer of the last two Derby winners, Secretariat and Riva Ridge, says that 26 horses bolting from the gate would be "a cavalry charge," with so much bumping and jostling that many horses would be knocked off stride before reaching the first turn. Laurin himself has decided not to enter Secretariat's half brother Capital Asset, an embarrassing relative which finished last in the Wood. Meanwhile, everyone else's horse van keeps arriving in Louisville.