Monday, April 6, 1998 | 11:42 a.m.
TWO DOWN, one to go.
As of mid-afternoon last Saturday, that remains the count for the showdown of all showdowns in America's most famous horse race -- the Kentucky Derby.
Not in its previous 123 runnings has the run for the roses showcased three undefeated horses in pursuit of racing history under the trademark twin spires at Churchill Downs.
If 1997 Horse-of-the-Year Favorite Trick can polish off a short field of would-be giant-killers in the Arkansas Derby on Saturday, then this year's Derby will be one for the record books before the field is ever dispatched on the first Saturday in May.
Event Of The Year passed his final pre-Derby test in the March 29 Grade II Jim Beam Stakes at Turfway Park with a five-length victory covering the 1 1/8 miles in 1:47 flat.
Then, on Saturday, Indian Charlie streaked to a 2 1/4-length win in the Grade I Santa Anita Derby at the Great Race Place in an equal clocking of 1:47 flat for the same 1 1/8-mile trip.
The winners extended their respective unbeaten strings to four with those victories and boast exceeding maturity for their racing inexperience -- not to mention an overabundance of talent and promise.
Unlike their more accomplished rival Favorite Trick, their family trees may be the factor that levels the playing field in the bluegrass for the pair of sophomore upstarts. In the heartland of the world's thoroughbred breeding, it's what's in the genes instead of the jeans that makes the difference.
There is no doubt that Favorite Trick comes to work with a lunch pail and a blue-collar attitude that has carried him to nine winner's circle pictures in as many lifetime starts. He has taken his toolbox from coast to coast and completed each day's job in workmanlike fashion and, at times, in spectacular performances.
But it's those little chromosomes of heredity from the champ's daddy Phone Trick that have those experts who follow such things as casting doubts about Favorite Trick's chances to go the classic distance of the grueling 1 1/4 miles of the Derby.
Favorite Trick has met and conquered every competitor that has faced him from 4 1/2 furlongs to the 1 1/16 miles he covered while winning the Breeders' Cup Juvenile on the way to last year's top honor.
He returned this year to take the seven-furlong Swale Stakes at Gulfstream Park on March 14 with an easy victory for his sophomore debut.
Now he waits at Oaklawn Park, where he will make his 10th career start at a sixth different track for the longest journey of his life at 1 1/8 miles.
By comparison, Indian Charlie and Event Of The Year have tailor-made tuxedo breeding to Favorite Trick's bib overalls.
Event Of The Year is by the great Seattle Slew from the Mr. Prospector dam Classic Event (kind of poetic, huh?). You recall, Slew came to the Derby undefeated as well and not only won his Derby, but went on to capture the 1977 Triple Crown before suffering his first career loss. To date, he is the only horse ever to win the Triple Crown as undefeated and his son strikes an uncanny silhouette to the old man.
Indian Charlie is by the hot California sire In Excess out of the Leo Castelli mare Soviet Sojourn. He faced the most contentious field of contemporaries assembled in any Kentucky Derby prep this year and rated kindly for jockey Gary Stevens. The Bob Baffert trainee won with authority and gives last year's Derby-winning jockey-trainer combo a chance for back-to-back blankets of roses.
Trainer Bob Baffert has become this decade's D. Wayne Lukas of the Kentucky Derby. In 1996, Baffert visited Louisville with his first Derby starter in Santa Anita Derby winner Cavonnier. That Cal-bred fell just a head short to Lukas' Grindstone. Last year, the silver-haired conditioner came to the Derby with Santa Anita Derby runner-up SIlver Charm and won the trophy by the same margin he lost in 1996. This year, he is taking no chances with the twin Derby connection. Along with Indian Charlie, he has Santa Anita Derby runner-up Real Quiet also ticketed for Kentucky.
Jockey Gary Stevens can parlay his sixth Santa Anita Derby win of the last 11 editions into his third Derby win in the last four years and his fourth overall, in addition to joining only four other riders to ever win back-to-back Derbies.
And then there's that Dosage thing. That convoluted concoction of genetics, conformations, balance, center of gravity, salt, pepper, basil, kitchen sink, lawn furniture and whatever else you have hanging around that is retrofit after each Derby winner in some mathematical voodoo formula that says Favorite Trick is out and Indian Charlie and Event Of The Year are in.
The last time a horse won the Kentucky Derby with fewer than five previous starts was in 1915, when the filly Regret won in her fourth lifetime start, so Event and Charlie will have to deal with that.
Of course, Favorite Trick, in addition to the dreaded dosage, has to overcome the jinx of a Breeders' Cup Juvenile winner never winning the Derby and a future book favorite that hasn't won since 1979 (just don't put him on the cover of Sports Illustrated).
In 1963, two horses came to the Derby undefeated, Candy Spots and No Robbery, and neither won.
This year, the Arkansas Derby is the only obstacle left for an unprecedented trio of unblemished colts to test fate and each other.
Let destiny, not statistical mumbo-jumbo or dosage, decide their place in Derby history.
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