Ferdinand Booted to Roses by Good Old Shoe : Age Is Served as Jockey Directs Derby Upset for Whittingham

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Bill Shoemaker, scheduled to ride a 4-year-old colt with only two lifetime wins in Saturday’s third race at Churchill Downs, didn’t make it to the track on time.

“I had to wait for my wife (Cindy) to finish dressing at the hotel, and then I got caught in traffic,” Shoemaker said.

Shoemaker might have missed the $11,000 third race, but his timing was perfect in the $784,400 Kentucky Derby, about 3 1/2 hours later.

Orchestrating a ride that veteran Shoemaker-watchers are calling perhaps the best in a 38,000-race career, the 54-year-old jockey masterfully squeezed Ferdinand through on the rail for a 2-length Derby win that, like Jack Nicklaus’ recent victory in the Masters, shows that young whippersnappers don’t have a corner on the gravy.

Of the cast connected with the winner of the 112th Derby, only the 3-year-old Ferdinand is a youngster. Shoemaker is the oldest jockey ever to win the race, surpassing the 42-year-old Angel Cordero, who clicked with Spend a Buck last year. Charlie Whittingham, Ferdinand’s 73-year-old trainer, who hadn’t started a horse in the Derby since 1960, won the race for the first time and replaced Frank Childs as the oldest victorious trainer. Childs was 72 when he won the Derby with Tomy Lee, who was ridden by Shoemaker, in 1959.

Rounding out the Ferdinand team are owner Elizabeth Keck and her husband, Howard, who is in his early 70s and who bred the Nijinsky II colt to run under the ownership of his wife. Howard Keck, who lives in West Los Angeles, completed an unprecedented double with Ferdinand, becoming the first man to win both the Derby and another race built for speed, the Indianapolis 500. Keck cars driven by Bill Vukovich, who was later killed in the race, won at Indianapolis in 1953 and 1954.

“It took Charlie until he was 73 to win the Derby,” the 58-year-old Mel Stute said back at his barn late Saturday. “I don’t even know if I’ll live that long. As for Bill Shoemaker, he’s a credit to his profession, and he can ride until he’s 70.”

The Stute-trained Snow Chief, who had finished seven lengths ahead of the third-place Ferdinand in winning the Santa Anita Derby a month ago, was the downside of this up-with-old-folks Kentucky Derby. Snow Chief, sent off as the 2-1 favorite by a crowd of 123,819 that bet more on Badger Land until about 45 minutes before post time, ran the worst race of his life, looming in contention until the top of the stretch, then finishing 11th in the 16-horse field.

“He just didn’t run his race,” Stute said. “Maybe I didn’t have him fit enough. Maybe I made a mistake. But as much as he was beaten, I don’t think there was much I could have done.”

Both Snow Chief and Badger Land were attempting to do what no horse had done since Needles in 1956--win the Derby after not having run in a month before the race.

Badger Land, the 13-10 second choice, was clobbered in a chain-reaction bumping incident leaving the gate, got within striking distance on the far turn and wound up fifth.

Ferdinand, who also got squeezed at the start, was the first horse to win the Derby from the No. 1 post position since Chateaugay in 1963. Running the 1 miles in 2:02 4/5, the slowest Derby time in 12 years, Ferdinand paid $37.40, $16.20 and $8.60. Last going into the first turn and not even in the television picture until the field turned for home, Ferdinand’s win was reminiscent of the one here by another California-based longshot, Gato Del Sol, who came from far back by using the outside route in 1982 to pay $44.40.

Bold Arrangement, the English colt whose first race on dirt came while running third in the Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland 10 days ago, ran second in his second United States appearance, outfinishing Broad Brush by three-quarters of a length.

Broad Brush was a neck better than Rampage, and after them the order was Badger Land, Wheatly Hall, Fobby Forbes, Icy Groom, Wise Times, Mogambo, Snow Chief, Zabaleta, Southern Appeal, Bachelor Beau, Vernon Castle and Groovy, who led the way for three-quarters of a mile.

Bold Arrangement paid $9.40 and $6.80. Broad Brush’s show price was $9.20.

Ferdinand earned $609,400, almost double his pre-Derby purses.

Characteristically, Shoemaker tried to downplay his contribution. “It was the horse, not the rider,” he said in the jockeys’ room.

But other riders in the roughly run race knew better. There may not have been a jockey in the room who didn’t come over and congratulate Shoemaker, and he got big hugs from fellow California jockeys Laffit Pincay and Chris McCarron, who rode Bold Arrangement.

McCarron was born in 1955, the year Shoemaker won his first Derby with Swaps. After Tomy Lee, Shoemaker also won with Lucky Debonair in 1965, but he waited until his 24th Derby mount to smell the roses again, having failed with his last nine mounts.

Only Bill Hartack and Eddie Arcaro, with five wins each, have won the Derby more than Shoemaker.

“It was 21 years since I’d last won this race, and I was thinking that I might not ever get the chance to win it again,” Shoemaker said. “It’s very satisfying. But I always thought that this colt had a chance to win the Derby.

“I told Bill Nack (a Sports Illustrated writer) early this year that I was going to win the Derby.”

Shoemaker, who has now won 8,537 races, 942 stakes and 217 races worth $100,000 or more, thinks he’s riding as well as he did 20 years ago.

“Maybe I’m not as good as I was at 25, but I think I’m as good as I was when I was 35,” he said. “Like good old Kentucky bourbon whiskey, we improve with age.”

Shoemaker had Ferdinand well off the rail going down the backstretch, when Groovy gasped his last gasp and Broad Brush, Bold Arrangement and Badger Land began moving into position.

Coming out of the turn for home, Shoemaker had to make a decision whether to stay outside or try to make it to the rail.

“The horses on the rail (Snow Chief and Rampage) looked like they were stopping, so I decided to go inside,” Shoemaker said. “Saving ground might have been the difference between winning and losing.”

Under left-handed whipping, and not goofing off as he had done in earlier races, Ferdinand passed Broad Brush inside the three-sixteenths pole.

“He pricked his ears a little bit,” Shoemaker said, “but he didn’t lose interest once he got the lead.”

Shoemaker, of course, would have made this his fifth Derby win if he hadn’t misjudged the finish line with Gallant Man in 1957. Shoemaker stopped riding for an instant and by the time he got back in gear, Iron Liege had beaten Gallant Man to the wire by a nose, in the most celebrated boner in Derby history.

Asked Saturday if Ferdinand’s win made up for Gallant Man’s loss, Shoemaker said: “Nothing ever makes up for the mistakes you make.”

But if Mel Stute is right, Shoemaker has 16 more years in the saddle. He still has time for atonement.