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From the Backstretch Will Drysdale's unusual training tactics pay off?
Posted: Saturday May 06, 2000 10:03 AM
LOUISVILLE -- If Fusaichi Pegasus wins Saturday's Kentucky Derby, it will be the result of one of the most creative and intuitive training jobs of all time. Ever since Neil Drysdale arrived with his talented but temperamental charge at Churchill Downs nearly three weeks ago, he has done everything except what is expected of a trainer who is preparing his colt for the greatest race on the planet. The goal for any Kentucky Derby trainer is to have his horse wound as tight as a Timex by 5:30 p.m. on the first Saturday in May. Drysdale, who has never run a horse in the Derby, has flouted almost every existing maxim of conventional Derby preparation to reach that end. Indeed, he seems to be improvising his training regimen like a jazz musician, jogging the horse when he should be galloping, and galloping the horse when he should be running him in timed workouts. Fusaichi Pegasus has only one recorded workout over the Churchill Downs track since his victory in the Wood Memorial on April 15, and has mostly taken it easy since arriving in Louisville. That may owe to the colt's reputation for rambunctiousness -- he threw an exercise rider last week -- as well as to his fitness coming out of the Wood Memorial. "He ran quite recently," Drysdale said yesterday. "It was three weeks between [the Wood Memorial and the Kentucky Derby], and I thought he was quite fit going into the Wood. He's not going to lose that fitness since he's continuing to train, so we went quite lightly with him when we first got here. He's just been playing, and he's so full of life that I'm not that worried about him." Drysdale's approach has differed significantly from some of the more conventional tactics of trainers with proven track records at the Derby. D. Wayne Lukas, who has trained four Kentucky Derby winners, has been drilling High Yield with tough workouts since the colt won the Blue Grass on April 15, even though he has run four tough races in a row. "I've never won this thing taking the soft approach," Lukas said Wednesday. "And I don't think anybody else has either." Bob Baffert certainly hasn't. For the fourth straight year, he is brining a horse to Louisville after racing in the Santa Anita Derby. It is a path that has brought him much success. Silver Charm ran in the Santa Anita in 1997 before winning the Kentucky Derby, as did Real Quiet one year later. This spring, Baffert has pinned his hopes to Captain Steve, whoe third-place finish in the Santa Anita ended a disappointing spring, but who has been training like a champion ever since he arrived at Churchill Downs on April 14. Captain Steve is coming into the run for the roses off of a traditional workout schedule. The colt's timed efforts have been five days apart, and he has gone into each one of them off of a steady diet of increasingly strenuous gallops. "You learn from experience coming here," Baffert said yesterday morning. "I stick to my style because I've had a lot of luck with it. We want to have a good fresh horse with enough foundation for not only the Kentucky Derby, but for the Preakness and for the Belmont." Drysdale did make one concession to convention on Thursday, when he schooled the squirrely Fusaichi Pegasus in the paddock with several of his rivals before the fifth race in front of a crowd of nearly 23,000. To everyone's surprise, the colt passed the test without a hitch. That alone is a testament to the job Drysdale has already done with him. Here's a comparison of the workout schedules for both Captain Steve and Fusaichi Pegasus for the last two weeks before the Derby:
*Note: Captain Steve worked a 1/2 mile in 47 1/5 seconds over a muddy track on April 17.
**Note: Fusaichi Pegsus won the 1 1/8-mile Wood Memorial on April 15, covering
the distance in 1:47 4/5 seconds.
***Drysdale claims that Fusaichi Pegasus breezed about three furlongs on the
morning of April 22, before the track's timekeeper was on duty.
Just for fun, here's Secretariat's schedule for the two weeks leading to the Derby in 1973. Note that he ran in the Wood Memorial on April 21, which gave him only 13 days to prepare. The schedule is provided by SI's William Nack, who charted every training day of the colt's racing career.
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