Beauty and the Beast

The field for this week's 95th Kentucky Derby may well be the smallest since nine thoroughbreds ran for the roses in 1963. Not that the 1969 crop of three-year-olds is unimpressive. It is just that the Derby promises to be a runaway race between two strapping chestnut colts--one an undefeated sprinter from the West, the other an erratic stretch runner out of the East.

Charming Prince. The early 6-to-5 favorite in what is being billed as the "Battle of the Big Two" is Majestic Prince, grandson of the great Native Dancer and a winner in all seven of his races. In the $132,200 Santa Anita Derby, Jockey Bill Hartack all but hauled in the reins going down the stretch and the Prince still won by eight lengths, the widest margin of victory in the 32-year history of the event.

Nicknamed "the Ham" because he likes to pose for pictures, the copper-toned colt impresses everybody with his appearance as well as his record. His breeder, Leslie Combs II of Spendrift Farm in Lexington, Ky., raves: "He has looks. He has speed. He has courage. And, most important, he has done everything right from the very start." Majestic Prince has certainly done right by Combs, who sold him as a yearling in 1967 for the then record price of $250,000-to Frank McMahon, a Vancouver, B.C., industrialist.

Majestic Prince was recommended to McMahon by no less a judge of horseflesh than Johnny Longden, 62, the winningest jockey in history (6,026 victories in 32,406 starts) and now the horse's trainer. Says Johnny: "Hartack is so high on this colt he comes out to work him in the mornings, and you know how many name jocks do that." Even his blacksmith finds the Prince charming. "His hoofs," says Bill Bane, "are as perfect a set as I've been privileged to work with for many a year."

Ugly Colt. The horse that is expected to be hot on those well-turned hoofs is Top Knight, a 2-to-l contender who is shorter on looks but longer on earnings. Last season's top two-year-old, he has won seven times in 13 starts for total winnings of $511,921. Though he has faltered in a few races, Top Knight has won impressively against a far better class of competition than Majestic Prince has faced. In his last outing at Gulfstream Park, Top Knight won by five lengths in a field that included four Derby contenders.

Son of Vertex, who sired 1965 Derby Winner Lucky Debonair, Top Knight was a "very ugly, gangly colt," with a reputation for gimpy legs. "He may be a little odd-looking," admits Trainer Ray Metcalf. "Nobody particularly liked him--until he started putting those $100,000 purses in the bank."

Though the Derby may shape up as a classic contest of Beauty v. Beast, few touts with a memory are willing to concede that it is strictly a match race. There have been Big Two Derbies before, such as Candy Spots v. No Robbery in 1963, and Damascus v. Ruken in 1967. None of those favorites won. This year, at least half a dozen outsiders could make history repeat itself, including Dike, a 6-to-l shot by virtue of his victory in the $110,900 Wood Memorial at Aqueduct, and Arts and Letters, who bested Top Knight during the winter season.

Last week, Longden seemed less concerned with talk of the Big Two than with winning the Big Three--the Derby, Preakness and Belmont. "Majestic Prince," he says flatly, "will win the Triple Crown." If he or Top Knight does, it will be the first time a three-year-old has accomplished the feat since Citation did it in 1948.

* Since surpassed by the sale of Reine Enchanteur for $405,000 in 1968.

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