Heading for the Lonely Derby

It may be a horse race after all.

That might seem to be an odd thing to say about a Kentucky Derby. But until a few days ago, it was the strong consensus among both those who know the turf and those who merely know the betting windows that a splendid colt named Honest Pleasure was as sure a thing at Churchill Downs this Saturday as the weak mint julep.

Coming into last Thursday's Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland, the compact, brown three-year-old with the white star in the middle of his forehead had won eight races in a row. He had blasted the field by eleven lengths in the Flamingo Stakes in February and had gone off at odds of 1 to 20 in the Florida Derby, which he won waltzing.

So imposing were the colt's credentials that a Blue Grass record crowd of 20,900 wagered an unprecedented $330,000 on the race, most of it on Honest Pleasure. By post time, the actual odds were 1 to 18, and he did not disappoint his backers. (Good news for the bettors, bad news for the track: it lost $41,876.20 on the race, since it had to pay $2.20 for each $2 bet on Honest Pleasure.)

Why then did Honest Pleasure's trainer, LeRoy Jolley, not look so jolly after the race? For one thing, the colt did not win the Blue Grass in his customary runaway style. His time was poor (1:49 2/5% for the 1 1/8% mile) and his margin a mere 1 1/2 lengths over a 148-to-l shot named Certain Roman, primarily because he fought furiously against Jockey Braulio Baeza's efforts to slow him in the backstretch. For another, there is Bold Forbes, a sprightly East Coast colt who was thought to be essentially a sprinter until he turned in an eye-opening performance in the 1 1/8%-mile Wood Memorial at Aqueduct, setting a record of 1:47 2/5% for the stakes.

This year's Derby may have the smallest field in 28 years (seven or eight) and probably will be a virtual match race between Honest Pleasure and Bold Forbes. It will surely be a track tactician's delight since neither animal, by breeding or instinct, is willing to be "rated." In rough translation, the term means that if you have to run a long way, you had better run some of it slowly, or you might never get there at all.

In a sense, it is a family fight; both horses are grandsons of Bold Ruler, a famous front runner whose offspring have carried that trait. Both have canny jockeys: Baeza, who sits in the saddle like an emperor, and Angel Cordero, New York's top rider in 1975. Of the two, Baeza is considered better at saying whoa to a speed horse. Jolley and Bold Forbes' trainer, Laz Barrera, will each have to guess the tactics of the other before the Derby begins and decide upon his own. Both jockeys will then have to make split-second decisions as to whether those best laid of plans will have to be abandoned. One danger is that if Bold Forbes and Honest Pleasure both insist on running full tilt from the start, they could go down in embarrassing defeat, even though the other colts are among the most miserable crop in memory.

Controlling a horse that will not "rate" is a formidable challenge. Eddie Arcaro rode Bold Ruler in the 1957 Derby, which the 6-to-5 favorite lost to long-shot Iron Liege. "If you tried to slow Bold Ruler down, if you fought him, he'd just give up on you," Arcaro told TIME last week. "It goes with the breed. You can't fight Honest Pleasure or Bold Forbes either. It makes the tactics of this race a mystery. I imagine both horses will be run as slowly as possible without strangling them. Then we'll see who has something left for the stretch. But they'll be hard to hold at all."

Bargain Price. Of the two, Honest Pleasure is the class. His father, What a Pleasure, sired last year's Derby winner, Foolish Pleasure, and recently was sold for a record $8 million. LeRoy Jolley encouraged Bert Firestone, a real estate developer from Virginia, and his wife, Dinah, to buy Honest Pleasure at the Saratoga Yearling Sales in 1974. The bargain price was $45,000. He has since won $626,799 and been named 1975's best two-year-old colt.

Bold Forbes, owned by E. Rodriguez Tizol, a San Juan banker, has a less distinguished background. Trained in Puerto Rico, his first five wins were at El Comandante Racetrack in San Juan, where the competition is of dubious quality. But to the special delight of a fast-growing Hispanic following (shades of 1971 Derby Winner Canonero II), he has come very fast--literally.

If fast turns out to be too fast for the two favorites, somebody has to cross the finish line first. Longshot fanciers eye Elmendorf Farm's Play the Red. But longshot fanciers die broke.

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