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Triple Threat

Fusaichi Pegasus started his drive for horse racing's elusive prize with a spectacular win in the Kentucky Derby

By William Nack

Issue date: May 15, 2000

For the most fleeting of moments last Saturday, as the field of 19 horses hit the final turn for home, jockey Alex Solis looked down the 440 yards of homestretch dirt and saw his most fervent dreams coming true. His mount, a dark bay colt named Aptitude, had grabbed the bit and was moving powerfully, less than four diminishing lengths off the lead. He sensed that this Kentucky Derby was his to win. "It looked heavenly," Solis said. "My horse was running so easily."

Then, in a trice, Solis glanced ahead and to his right and saw jockey Kent Desormeaux swinging his mount, Fusaichi Pegasus, outside a wall of horses on the bend and sitting almost motionless on his back as the colt surged forward. "I saw Kent just galloping along in front of me and I said, 'Oh, s---!'" said Solis, who had finished a close second in 1997 and '98 but had not won the Derby in his nine previous starts.

Solis knew instantly that he was in trouble. Desormeaux had ridden Pegasus with bold confidence from the outset, scooting along the rail inside heavy traffic, and now Desormeaux was angling him seven horses wide. The colt, his neck bowed, swept boldly for home in long, effortless strides. Desormeaux waited for Pegasus to straighten out and switch leads before launching his rush from the 3/16 pole. Here the jockey reached for a shorter hold, a signal for the horse to go, and then he made a kissing sound with his lips. "He exploded," Desormeaux said. "I was awestruck. I felt like I could fly. I felt like I had wings."

This was the moment that everyone in racing had been waiting for at Churchill Downs, the final 300 yards of the 10-furlong classic and the answer to the defining question of the Triple Crown season: How good is Fusaichi Pegasus? No one had doubted his potential. In fact, a small fortune had been gambled on it in July '98, at the Keeneland yearling sale, when his glowing physical presence and pedigree forced a spirited bidding war between a ponytailed Japanese venture capitalist in engineering, Fusao Sekiguchi, and an American-English-Irish syndicate. The bidding ended only after Sekiguchi offered $4 million, topping the syndicate's last bid of $3.9 million. The next day one member of the syndicate, Satish Sanan, called up Arthur Hancock, a cobreeder of the colt, and bellowed, "Arthur, I wanted that damn horse!"

"Why the hell did you stop bidding?" Hancock asked.

"I wanted to go higher, but my partners pulled up," said Sanan.

Indeed, the underbidders surrendered only when it appeared that Sekiguchi would stop at nothing. They were right. "I had a strong feeling about that horse when I first saw him," Sekiguchi said through an interpreter. "I had to have him. I had no limits on how much I would spend." Nor was there any self-restraint in what Sekiguchi decided to call him. Fusaichi is a blend of the owner's first name and the Japanese word ichi, which means "number one."

Since Pegasus cruised to a deceptively close, three-quarter-length victory over The Deputy in the March 19 San Felipe Stakes at Santa Anita, no other 3-year-old stirred the hopes of the racing world as did this muscular colt with the model's head and the linebacker's shoulders. Four weeks later his mystique grew when he pounded a strong field in the Wood Memorial at Aqueduct, winning by nearly five lengths. He was evoking memories of Sunday Silence and Easy Goer, the Triple Crown rivals of '89, and some heretical observers even saw in him the dappled shades of Spectacular Bid, the Derby and Preakness champion of 1979.

For all this summoning of exalted ghosts, young Pegasus, an offspring of Mr. Prospector and the Danzig mare Angel Fever, had his doubters. He did not break his maiden until Jan. 2, and not since Proud Clarion in 1967 had a horse won the Derby without a victory as a 2-year-old. Coming off four straight wins, including the Wood, Pegasus would certainly be favored in the Derby, and no favorite had won it since Spectacular Bid. Most worrisome, though, was the colt's reputation as something of a head case. He balked in the post parade at the Wood, refusing to approach the gate and delaying the start by three minutes. Then he raised every eyebrow in River City on the morning of April 27 when, as he was walking off the track, he reared up, dumped his exercise rider, lost his balance and tipped over backward, landing on his side.

So his trainer, Neil Drysdale, spent much of last week deflecting questions about his charge's mental state. "He's a very playful and spirited horse," Drysdale insisted. "He's very curious. He likes to look around."

Though only five lifetime starts had left Pegasus short on seasoning, no one who knew Drysdale and his talent for conditioning horses ever doubted his ability to prepare this colt for the rigors of the Derby. As a native of Surrey, England, Drysdale had learned the King's English; as a student at the University of Barcelona he had learned Spanish; and as a protege of the late Charles Whittingham, one of America's foremost horse whisperers, he had become fluent in equine, a subtle tongue of complex yeas and neighs. The 52-year-old Drysdale had never started a horse in the Derby, though in 1992 he scratched likely second favorite A.P. Indy on the day of the race because of a bruise to the horse's left front hoof. Still, Drysdale had won $52.5 million in purses and trained five champions, including A.P. Indy, who went on to win the Belmont, the Breeders' Cup Classic and Horse of the Year honors. Despite his unorthodox Derby training schedule -- rather than drill the colt with speedy workouts, he lightly walked and jogged him more often than any trainer in memory -- Drysdale's unflinching confidence inspired the sense that he knew exactly what he was doing.

He did. He had learned to read Fusaichi Pegasus like a book in braille, through a highly developed sense of touch, and by Derby Day he had the colt right where he wanted him. Pegasus was a perfect gentleman in the paddock and post parade. When the gates sprung open, Desormeaux rode him with as much artistry as Drysdale had used in training him. Defying the perils of traffic on the rail, Desormeaux, who won the 1998 Derby aboard Real Quiet, saved much ground, wheeled Pegasus out on the turn for home, then roused him only when he had dead aim.

Pegasus snatched the lead at the eighth pole from More Than Ready, and through those last 220 yards, under a hand ride, he bounded away to win by 1 1/2 lengths, with Aptitude in futile pursuit. The winner's time of 2:01 was the sixth fastest in the 126 years the Derby has been run. "Unfortunately, we hooked a monster today," said Solis.

As Desormeaux rode his glistening, mud-flecked steed past the cheering crowds, a jubilant Sekiguchi -- sporting a walking stick and a $4 million grin -- came to the winner's circle flanked by four geishas, their faces powdered white, wearing bright kimonos. Pegasus had answered the big question in his own colorful terms. In fact, he is very good. "This pretty boy can run," Desormeaux said.

But it was jockey Corey Nakatani, who finished 13th on Anees, who drew the winner in the boldest colors: "There's the Triple Crown winner."

Of the stretch run, Desormeaux said, "I was awestruck. I felt like I could fly."

Issue date: May 15, 2000

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