At Age 60, Trainer May Finally See Louisville : Scotty Schulhofer’s Cryptoclearance Is Favored in Today’s Flamingo Stakes

HIALEAH, Fla. —  Scotty Schulhofer, a 60-year-old trainer, has never been to Louisville, much less run a horse in the Kentucky Derby.

About two decades back, Schulhofer spent four years working for Tartan Stable, whose general manager, John Nerud, stayed away from the Derby after his brilliant Gallant Man ran second to Iron Liege when jockey Bill Shoemaker misjudged the finish line in 1957. The only time Nerud has bent his anti-Derby sentiments was in 1982, when he permitted Muttering, a Tartan-owned colt, to run. Muttering finished fifth.

“John’s right about the Derby,” Schulhofer said. “Too many horses have been ruined by running in the Derby when they had no business being there. It takes a good horse--the right kind of horse--to run in the Derby.”

This year, though, Schulhofer may have such a horse. He is a leggy, medium-sized colt named Cryptoclearance, the 5-2 favorite in today’s $450,000 Flamingo Stakes at Hialeah. Although the Flamingo is only the first major race of the year for 3-year-old colts, a win by Cryptoclearance would almost certainly prompt Schulhofer to start planning his maiden trip to Louisville and the Derby May 2.

At Hialeah, a picturesque but troubled track beset by financial and political problems, the purse of the 1 1/8-mile Flamingo has been raised $150,000, and the trainers of 14 horses have responded for today’s running, which will be on a fast surface in 80-degree weather.

There is quantity, if not quality. The conditions of the race say that stakes winners must carry 122 pounds, all others 118 pounds, and only four starters--Cryptoclearance, Conquistarose, Schism and Fly Fly Fly--qualify for the 122.

Here is the Flamingo field, in post-position order:

Momsfurrari, to be ridden by Richard Adkins; Conquistarose, Eddie Maple; Schism, Jorge Velasquez; Proudest Duke, Mike Gonzalez; Rupperto, Fernando Toro; Bourgeois, Craig Perret; Avies Copy, Jacinto Vasquez; Cryptoclearance, Jose Santos; Talinum, Angel Cordero; Leo Castelli, Jean Cruguet; The Real Truth, Randy Romero; Manhattan’s Woody, Robert Lester; No More Flowers, Walter Guerra; and Fly Fly Fly, Jose Velez.

Tartan Stable, Schulhofer’s old connection, is running two horses, Schism and Bourgeois, and they will be coupled in the betting. Because the tote board has room for only 12 numbers, longshots Avies Copy and The Real Truth have been bracketed in the parimutuel field. The morning line just behind Cryptoclearance has Conquistarose at 3-1, Leo Castelli at 5-1 and Talinum at 6-1.

Schulhofer figures that Conquistarose, trained by Woody Stephens, is the horse to beat. Both horses have run well here this winter. Cryptoclearance, in fact, won the Everglades, which is the same distance as the Flamingo, on a sloppy track and under a heady ride from Santos Feb. 7.

Cryptoclearance is a son of Fappiano, out of Naval Orange, a Hoist the Flag mare. Schulhofer believes that breeding should produce the stamina necessary for a horse to handle the 1-mile Derby distance.

“It’s not that I don’t like the Derby, it’s just that I’ve never had the horse who belonged in the race,” Schulhofer said. “I’ve always hoped that I’d have one. A few years ago, when I was training for Harbor View, I had a horse named Dominating Dooley who won the El Camino Real Derby early in the year at Bay Meadows. Everybody said he should run in the Kentucky Derby, but I didn’t think he fit and we didn’t go.”

Cryptoclearance, however, won comfortably at a mile as early as last October, and Schulhofer purposely rested him the remainder of the year with the rigors of this year’s Triple Crown series in mind.

“He’s a versatile horse,” Schulhofer said. “He’s got speed and you can lay him anywhere you want in a race.”

In the Everglades, Cryptoclearance started out in fourth place, not far behind the leaders. On the turn for home, Santos, instead of taking the wide route, about five horses from the rail, angled him toward the inside and split a couple of opponents through the stretch. Cryptoclearance was still full of run after reaching the finish line and Santos couldn’t pull him up until he had gone another eighth of a mile.

Cryptoclearance, a $190,000 yearling bought by Philip Teinowitz, a Chicago attorney and realtor, has four wins, a second and a third and earnings of $130,750 in eight starts. The only race on his record that doesn’t figure is last summer’s Arlington-Washington Futurity, in which he finished ninth, beating only two horses.

“I can only guess that he never got hold of the track,” Schulhofer said. “He seemed to be scrambling all the way. I lost him in the crowd, and then when a horse started to make a big move, I thought that was him. But it was Woody’s horse.”

That was Conquistarose, who rallied for second behind Bet Twice, a colt who will make his 3-year-old debut here today in the six-furlong Key West Stakes, to be run an hour before the Flamingo. Another prominent horse in the division, Gulch, is also running in the Key West.

As part of a developing trend among trainers with Kentucky Derby prospects this year, Schulhofer has planned a light schedule for Cryptoclearance between now and the red-letter day at Churchill Downs. After today, the colt may run only one more time, either in the Jim Beam Stakes at Turfway Park--formerly Latonia--near Cincinnati March 29, or in the Florida Derby at Gulfstream Park near here April 4.

“This horse runs well (with a lot of rest),” Schulhofer said. Indeed, Cryptoclearance started this year with a win in Hialeah’s Biscayne Bay Stakes, his first race in three months.

The other morning, as Cryptoclearance cooled out after working half a mile in a satisfactory :47 4/5, Mike Kennedy, the exercise rider, yelled to Schulhofer: “We made the workout, but we lost the tongue strap someplace along the way.”

Schulhofer smiled. There are plenty of those straps, which prevent horses from swallowing their tongues. Kennedy, by the way, is not a bad man to have around when a barn has a Derby candidate. One of the horses he used to gallop is Seattle Slew, who swept the Triple Crown in 1977.