Wood Memorial Roulette

When thirty six red dug in to win the Wood Memorial by a head at New York's Aqueduct racetrack last Saturday, it was the culmination of two weeks of prep races that had Kentucky Derby contenders popping up in California, New York and Kentucky. It also bolstered a Derby field weakened when such promising colts as Rhythm, Grand Canyon, Slavic and Red Ransom dropped out of the picture. Now those early favorites won't even be missed at Churchill Downs on May 5.

The likely favorite for the 116th Kentucky Derby is a gritty little colt named Summer Squall, whose 28 owners include a newspaper owner, a literary agent and three widows. The Kentuckians in the Derby crowd will most certainly back him. Squall has won seven of his eight races, and he's a Kentucky-bred. But his trainer, Neil Howard, is quick to admit that Squall will be hard-pressed to beat the undefeated Mister Frisky, who ran his record to 16 straight when he won the Santa Anita Derby on April 7.

"I'm not going to pull against myself," Howard said, after Squall won the Blue Grass Stakes on April 14. "I love my colt and I wouldn't trade places with anybody. But Mister Frisky is a helluva horse."

So is Thirty Six Red. His trainer, Nick Zito, called him "a street fighter" after he held off Burnt Hills and the 3-5 favorite, undefeated Champagneforashley, to win the Wood. With Thirty Six Red coming from New York, Summer Squall from Kentucky and Mister Frisky from California via Florida and Puerto Rico, the Derby will have excellent balance, both competitively and geographically.

But most of the pre-Derby attention will be trained on Mister Frisky. After San Juan construction engineer Jose Fernandez and his wife, Marta, bought the colt at an Ocala, Fla., auction for a paltry $15,000, they took him home to Puerto Rico and turned him over to trainer Juan Rodriguez. There, the 2-year-old colt won all 12 of his starts, broke two track records at El Comandante and was named Puerto Rico's horse of the year.

After his first win as a 3-year-old, Fernandez decided to send his copper-colored colt to Hall of Fame trainer Laz Barrera, in California. Mister Frisky is so popular that a crowd of 2,000 turned out at the San Juan airport to bid him farewell. Under Barrera, Mister Frisky won the hearts of the California bettors as well, winning all three of his races at Santa Anita and earning a ticket to the Derby. "He's proved he's for real," says Barrera, who bristles when Mister Frisky is knocked for running against weak competition in Puerto Rico. "He's not just Puerto Rico's horse, he's America's horse."

Well, not all of America. In Kentucky, the hardboots are partial to Summer Squall. A dark bay son of Storm Bird, Squall was bred in the Bluegrass state by Will Farish, the oil tycoon who has entertained both Queen Elizabeth II and President Bush at his Lane's End Farm in Versailles. Besides thoroughbreds, Farish also breeds English springer spaniels, and it was he who presented the President with Millie, the bitch who produced the famous White House litter.

Farish and one of his partners, William S. Kilroy, sold Summer Squall for $300,000 at the 1988 Keeneland summer yearling sales. The buyer was Cot Campbell, whose Dogwood Stable specializes in putting together horse syndicates. When Campbell put Squall's together, Farish made sure he got a share.

Then Campbell turned Squall over to Howard, 41, who has been training for Farish and his partners since the early 1980s. The bushy-browed Howard has never had a Derby starter, which makes him nervous when he thinks about matching wits and talent with Barrera, 65, who trained the 1976 Derby winner, Bold Forbes, and the 1978 Triple Crown winner, Affirmed. But Howard has done an excellent job of guiding Summer Squall through a career that's been, well, stormy.

After winning his first five starts as a 2-year-old, Squall suffered a hairline cannon-bone fracture in his right foreleg while prepping for the Arlington-Washington Futurity near Chicago. Just when he seemed to be coming back nicely from that injury, the colt bled from the nostrils after a workout at Gulfstream Park on Feb. 19. That put him far behind schedule, and Howard had little hope of getting him ready in time for the Derby.