THE KENTUCKY DERBY : The 113th Running Has Just About 113 Angles Going for It

LOUISVILLE, Ky. —  For trainer Wayne Lukas, it’s a crusade.

For trainers LeRoy Jolley, Woody Stephens and Eddie Gregson, and jockeys Bill Shoemaker, Jacinto Vasquez, Angel Cordero, Laffit Pincay and Don Brumfield, it would be an encore.

For owner David Leveton, it would be a dream come true.

For jockeys Chris McCarron and Pat Day, it would be the big one that’s always gotten away.

For owner Tom Gentry, it could be a return to solvency.

These, then, are some of the ingredients that go into today’s running of the 113th Kentucky Derby, a $793,600 race that isn’t filthy rich by contemporary standards, but is more revered and coveted than the Holy Grail by anyone who’s ever had a horse in it.

The 113th Derby has 17 horses in it, a few of them, as usual, lacking credentials. But an inordinately high number of them have a chance to win. There have been enough pre-race angles to keep the press corps out of the Louisville bars for hours on end this week. Mint julep sales are down all over town.

When the crowd of 125,000 or so settles down to the two minutes that count late this afternoon at Churchill Downs, this is what the folks will see:

--Demons Begone trying to become the first favorite to win the Derby since Spectacular Bid in 1979.

--Lukas, after nine misses, trying to win his first Derby by sending out the three-horse entry of Capote, War and On the Line.

--LeRoy Jolley, who is starting Gulch and Leo Castelli, and Stephens, who will saddle Conquistarose, each trying to win his third Derby.

--Gregson, who is here with the longshot, Candi’s Gold, trying to win the race for the second time.

--Shoemaker trying to win a record-tying fifth Derby with the dangerous Gulch; Vasquez, whose career has waned since his implications in a New York race-fixing scandal, shooting for Derby win No. 3 with Leo Castelli; Cordero, riding Capote, also looking for a Derby triple; and Pincay, aboard Masterful Advocate, and Brumfield, riding Momentus, aiming for second Derby victories.

--Leveton, the 49-year-old Century City attorney who bought into Masterful Advocate for only $2,750, hoping to live a dream that he first had when he was 5.

--McCarron, aboard the talented but fickle Alysheba, looking for his first Derby win after six failures; and Day, shut out in four previous attempts, getting his best chance at the roses with Demons Begone. If Alysheba wins, Day joins the Jockeys Who Picked the Wrong Horse for the Derby Club. Its members include Shoemaker and Eddie Arcaro. Day had been riding Alysheba, but McCarron picked up the mount in last week’s Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland because Day was staying with Demons Begone.

--Gentry, a Kentucky breeder rocked by a divorce and the depression of the bloodstock market, trying to fight back from a $25-million bankruptcy that could be helped immeasurably if War wins.

Today’s first prize is $618,600, the winner getting a leg up on a $1-million Triple Crown bonus and a $5-million guarantee if he could also win the Preakness at Pimlico in two weeks and the Belmont Stakes in New York June 6.

The weather forecast, which seems to be changing hourly, now suggests a 20% chance of late-afternoon showers, with the ABC telecast starting at 1:30 and the race about 2:33, PDT.

Although Lukas is here with three horses, he especially wants to win the Derby with Capote, who has been a four-legged lab experiment in that he has had only two prep races and didn’t run the first one until a month ago, coming off a five-month layoff.

Long ago, Lukas reviewed his previous Derby tactics and decided that his 3-year-olds had peaked too soon, but now his numerous critics--many of them horsemen--are saying that he has over-compensated with Capote.

Capote’s pattern indicates that the colt might be more likely to win the 1 3/16-mile Preakness than the 1-mile Derby. It appeared that Lukas had Capote ready to run five furlongs when he made his 1987 debut at a mile, and that the trainer had the horse ready to go a mile when he made his last start at 1 1/8 miles.

Capote was fourth in both of those races and it seems that he might be ready to run 1 1/8 miles today. Lukas is hoping for a fast track, since both of Capote’s starts at Aqueduct were in the mud.

No matter how he finishes, Capote has the speed to lead early in the race. If the form sheet holds up, Masterful Advocate will not be far behind, Demons Begone will be someplace in the middle and Gulch, Cryptoclearance, Alysheba and others will be making their serious runs through Churchill Downs’ harrowing, 1,234 1/2-foot stretch.

Jolley’s entry is considered more formidable than Lukas’ trio, thus the opening price of 4-1 on Gulch and Leo Castelli, who are the second choice.

Leo Castelli, another closer, reportedly came out of the rough-house Blue Grass with only scratches. Punishing Blue Grasses have their way of taking a toll in the Derby. In 1983, Marfa ran roughshod over several horses in the Blue Grass and, although Desert Wine came out of the race to finish second to Sunny’s Halo in the Derby, four other horses from the Blue Grass, including Marfa, were up the track here.

Cryptoclearance, breaking from the dreaded inside post position, will probably be the crowd’s third betting choice, but to win he will need a fortunate trip, as Ferdinand had a year ago.

“If anybody else was riding him, it might be a problem,” says Flint (Scotty) Schulhofer, Cryptoclearance’s trainer. “But with the guy I got (Jose Santos), I’m not worried.”

Santos has won about 800 races and earned approximately $2 million since he left Chile to start riding in the United States three years ago, but this will be his first Derby.

Shoemaker, the man who has ridden in the most--24--had dinner with Schulhofer the other night.

“I got shuffled back at the start with Ferdinand,” the 55-year-old jockey told the trainer, who has never been in a Derby. “But then when the horse was ready to run, everything opened up with me.”

Schulhofer said that he hopes the same thing happens for Cryptoclearance today. If it does, the 113th Kentucky Derby, rife with potential reprises in the winner’s circle, will get two new faces instead.