'what A Fiesta We Will Have!'

Soon Baptista was on the phone to Avila.

"Gustavo, you are rich and famous now," he remembers saying, "but do you want to be more rich and famous? If so, I will let you ride Canonero in the Kentucky Derby."

Venezuelan racing men thought Baptista was mad to even dream about winning the Derby. "They said Canonero would finish last at Churchill Downs," he recalls. "They said Avila would lose by 10 lengths. They said I was throwing my money away. But I knew what I was doing and that everybody else was crazy."

Nevertheless, Baptista did not go to Louisville himself. Pressing business commitments, he said. And the colt was kept in Caracas until only eight days before the Derby because Baptista "wanted to keep him where I could see him as long as possible." There were unexpected delays in shipping when blood test reports did not come on time from Washington, and then two days of quarantine—none of which bothered the colt as much as his traveling companions—chickens and ducks—on the plane to Miami. "He didn't like the birds," says Baptista, "so we sent him from Miami to Louisville by truck."

Immediately after the Derby one of Baptista's friends in Miami called the owner to tell him the news. "That's a sick joke," said Baptista, angrily slamming down the receiver. Seconds later the friend called back to tell him it was the truth. Baptista began to cry and could not talk. While Baptista was crying, his 74-year-old father came in and asked, "What's happening?" Told the news, he too began to cry. Then father and son went outside, got in a car and drove to the grave of Baptista's mother, where they cried some more.

"They wished that she could be with them," said Luis Efren Ruiz, a close friend of Baptista. "Then Don Pedro promised the Virgin Mary that he would build a grotto for his garden with a golden Virgin inside. That is already done."

At the Preakness, Baptista showed up with a lively party of 10 friends, and he remained in Baltimore until the Thursday after the race. During that time he could usually be found in the hotel coffee shop, chain-smoking and mulling over Canonero's future. On Monday, he said, a syndicate of U.S. horsemen offered $5 million for the colt. On Wednesday the president of Venezuela called to say that his government would match the offer. "There would be a revolution," said Victor Sciloam, who is Baptista's accountant and friend. "What we need in Venezuela are houses, not horses."

No matter—Baptista was enjoying the notoriety. "It is amazing to me," he said, "that a black man [Arias] and two Indians [Baptista and Avila] could come here and smash 200 years of tradition in racing. And now, God willing, Canonero also will win the Belmont and then—ay, yi—what a fiesta we will have in Venezuela!"

That should be something to see, judging by what has already happened. When Avila returned to Caracas on the weekend between the Derby and the Preakness, he was carried through the streets. (He also managed to win three races, including one aboard Pretendido, a half-brother on the sire's side to Canonero.) On Preakness afternoon racing was suspended at La Rinconada so the fans could watch Canonero on 100 TV sets set up for the occasion. When Canonero crossed the finish line, the fans were so delirious that they broke all the TV screens.

There is much glory for all concerned in Canonero's achievements, but the man whose life would seem to be changed the most is Arias. Before the Derby he was so little known that a Caracas newspaper could find only one old picture of him in its files. "Now even his fellow trainers will be waiting to cut off his necktie and parade him through the streets," says a friend.