Going to the Whip and Wire

BALTIMORE — Going to the whip may take on a different dimension in today’s 122nd Preakness at Pimlico, when Captain Bodgit and jockey Alex Solis try to reverse their loss by a head to Silver Charm and jockey Gary Stevens in the Kentucky Derby two weeks ago.

By one count, Solis hit Captain Bodgit 33 times in the Derby, mostly right-handed, as the late-running colt charged through the stretch, trying to overtake Silver Charm.

Near the sixteenth pole, Captain Bodgit veered in on Silver Charm. They almost brushed, but there was no contact as Solis quickly switched his whip to the left hand, in an effort to keep his mount running straight. Stevens was hitting Silver Charm right-handed, and said that for an instant, Solis’ whip might have gotten tangled with his.

Was all of this enough to make a difference in a race decided by only a head?

“It’s just one of those things,” said Gary Capuano, who trains Captain Bodgit. “When you get beat by a head, a nose, a neck, you always try to find excuses. Stevens said that if we’d gone around three more times, Silver Charm would have still beat us. Maybe he’s right. That may be the case.

“If Alex knew that our horse was going to duck in when he hit him that last time, would he have hit him? I guess not. But I don’t think there’s a rider around who could have tried what he tried--in tight, switching his whip hand in a half a second--and been able to do it. I’ve seen the tape of the stretch four or five times. What happened was just horse racing, that’s all.”

Solis’ reputation as a strong whip rider was one of the reasons the Team Valor syndicate headed by Barry Irwin replaced light-handed jockey Frank Douglas after buying Captain Bodgit for $550,000 four races ago.

“Captain Bodgit is one of those horses who responds to the whip,” Irwin said. “When I talked to the breeder [Florida veterinarian Edward Wiest], he told me to get a good stick jockey to ride this horse. Alex is not to blame for anything. What happened in the Derby happened in the heat of the battle and the finish just didn’t come up right. I know it’s bugging Alex a little that he didn’t win the Derby. He had it in his grasp and it slipped away.”

Stevens was also furiously whipping Silver Charm. Irwin said that Stevens hit the Derby winner more than 20 times through the stretch.

The 33-year-old Solis has risen from a modest Panamanian background to become one of the best jockeys around. He has dominated Southern California racing recently, having won the last five seasonal titles at the major tracks--Hollywood Park, Del Mar and Santa Anita--on the circuit. In Solis’ first of three Preakness mounts, he rode Snow Chief to victory here in 1986.

“Coming into the stretch, I thought we were going to win the Derby,” Solis said. “Unfortunately, it wasn’t meant to be. You just have to learn from it and move forward. It’s not the only race in the whole world.”

In four rides with Captain Bodgit, Solis has finished third in the Fountain of Youth, won the Florida Derby and the Wood Memorial and been second in the Derby.

Besides the first three finishers in the Derby, the other starters today include Concerto, ninth in the Derby after an otherwise consistent career; Touch Gold, winner of Keeneland’s Lexington Stakes; Frisk Me Now, winner of the Flamingo at Hialeah; Wild Tempest, a longshot trying to give trainer Nick Zito his second straight Preakness win; Cryp Too, a Suffolk Downs trainee who was second in the Withers at Aqueduct two weeks ago, and the no-hope entry of Jack At The Bank and Hoxie, both owned by Robert Perez.

On the morning line, Silver Charm was the 9-5 favorite, followed by Captain Bodgit at 2-1, Free House at 9-2 and Touch Gold at 5-1. The others were 12-1 or more.

The race is 1 3/16 miles, 110 yards shorter than the Derby, with all of the horses carrying the Derby weight of 126 pounds. The weather will be cool, with temperatures in the 60s, and if predicted morning rains stop by early afternoon, the track will be fast.

All of the horses are on the Pimlico grounds but Captain Bodgit, who trains at the Bowie Training Center, 30 miles south of here. Capuano will have his colt vanned over to Pimlico early this afternoon.

“He’s not a Lasix horse [a bleeder], so he doesn’t have to be there three or four hours early for the detention barn,” Capuano said.

In the second start of his career, and in his only race at Pimlico, Captain Bodgit won against maidens last August.

It looks like a Preakness with no clear-cut pace-setter. Captain Bodgit runs from far back and Irwin has said that his optimum distance is 1 1/2 miles. That’s the length of the Belmont Stakes, the final race in the Triple Crown, in three weeks.

“I think my horse might be laying fourth,” said Touch Gold’s trainer, David Hofmans. “Cryp Too, Silver Charm and Free House should be ahead of us early.”

How about Concerto?

“Yeah, he should be ahead of us, too,” Hofmans said. “I hope so. I’d like to see a few out there, to give us something to run at.”

While the trainers talk strategy, the owners traffic in omens. One of Sunday Silence’s owners, Arthur Hancock III, liked his chances in the 1989 Preakness when he found a lucky penny as he walked into Pimlico. Sunday Silence, who had already won the Derby, beat Easy Goer by a nose in one of the most dramatic Preaknesses ever.

At Wednesday’s post-position draw, Silver Charm drew the No. 7 post, but Beverly Lewis, who races the colt with her husband, Bob, calculated that into an advantage.

“There’s an entry, isn’t there?” she asked. “That makes us the No. 6 saddlecloth number, doesn’t it? Good. I like it. We were also No. 6 in the Derby.”

Horse Racing Notes

Jockey Pat Day, who has won the last three runnings of the Preakness and five overall, will not have a mount in today’s race. The horse Day rode to a fifth-place finish in the Kentucky Derby, Crypto Star, is skipping the race. Day’s agent, Doc Danner, made an inquiry to Barry Irwin and Team Valor if they might be interested in replacing Alex Solis with his client aboard Captain Bodgit. “We’re sticking with Solis,” Irwin told Danner. . . . There will be two jockey changes in the Preakness from the Derby: Concerto will have Mike Smith, instead of Carlos Marquez Jr., and Kent Desormeaux has replaced David Flores on Free House, the third-place finisher in the Derby.

Blushing K.D., impressive winner of the Kentucky Oaks at Churchill Downs two weeks ago, finished fourth, beaten by 7 3/4 lengths, as the 1-10 favorite in Friday’s $200,000 Black-Eyed Susan Stakes at Pimlico. Salt It, Buckeye Search and Holiday Ball, who finished 1-2-3, went off at respective odds of 10-1, 15-1 and 18-1, and there were some strange mutuel prices. Salt It, the winner by 4 1/2 lengths, paid $22.20, $12.80 and $62.40. Buckeye Search’s prices were $18.40 and $72.20, and Holiday Ball’s show payoff was $95. Salt It, who has won four of five starts, was ridden by Carlos Marquez Jr.

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THE DRAW

Post positions for today’s 122nd running of the Preakness Stakes, with horse, jockey and odds:

*--*

PP, Horse Jockey Odds 1. Jack At The Bank McCauley 50-1 2. Wild Tempest Bravo 20-1 3. Hoxie Santos 50-1 4. Free House Desormeaux 9-2 5. Touch Gold McCarron 5-1 6. Concerto Smith 12-1 7. Silver Charm Stevens 9-5 8. Frisk Me Now King 15-1 9. Captain Bodgit Solis 2-1 10. Cryp Too Lopez 30-1

*--*

THE FACTS

* WHERE: Pimlico Race Course, Baltimore.

* DISTANCE: 1 3/16 miles.

* WHEN: Today, 2:30 p.m. PDT

* TV: Channel 7.