It’s Not Acceptable to Walsh

LOUISVILLE, Ky. —  Trainer Kathy Walsh didn’t think the question was impertinent, just a tad old-fashioned.

She had been asked if this was something special, becoming only the eighth woman to saddle a horse in the Kentucky Derby.

“So many other people are deserving to be here, men and women,” Walsh said. “But really, this horse doesn’t know me as a woman or a man. He just knows me as an individual. I don’t mean this as a put-down on women, but I think the respect I might get has more to do with getting a horse to the Derby than what sex I am.”

No female trainer has won the Derby. To change that, Walsh’s Hanuman Highway will have to win Saturday off a morning-line price of 50-1, but that’s another story.

Walsh, 58, has been around the racetrack so long that for her, the gender issue went away long ago. It was different decades ago, when women could train horses but not physically saddle them.

The bloodlines of Hanuman Highway, an Irish-bred who raced last year in England, may not be fancy, but Walsh was born to the occupation. Jim Walsh, her father, trained in Northern California and Seattle, and his daughter was hanging around the track before she was reading Nancy Drew stories. Later, Kathy Walsh worked for Buster Millerick, the trainer of Native Diver and perhaps the best California horseman never elected to the Racing Hall of Fame.

When she was 22, Kathy Walsh had an assistant trainer’s license, and eight years later, in 1970, her father died. Walsh took over the horses, and that’s where she’s been, except for a five-year sabbatical when she was married to an executive from the Longacres track in Renton, Wash.

“I found out I couldn’t cook or sew,” she said.

By one count, Walsh has won 1,160 races, which is believed to be the most for a female trainer. The second-place trainer in this category may not even be close. The Daily Racing Form doesn’t keep close tabs.

In piling up these winners, Walsh has traversed the country. Much of her career was spent at Longacres, where she was leading trainer four times in the 1970s, and in 1976 she won 45 races at the meet, tying a record that had belonged to her father.

In 1985, her marriage over, Walsh trained at Sportsman’s Park in suburban Chicago and helped open Canterbury Downs in Minnesota. She even spent a season at Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs, Ark., so she was not unfamiliar with the track where Hanuman Highway ran his Kentucky Derby prep race. Three weeks ago, he lost by a head to Victory Gallop in the Arkansas Derby.

Walsh has been at Santa Anita since the early 1990s. She hired Pam Eckert, whom Walsh credits with settling Hanuman Highway since his arrival from England.

“I got used to him in a hurry,” Eckert said. “One of the bad habits he had was not being able to recognize the wire [finish line]. When horses don’t see the wire, they have a tendency to hang. But this one picked up on it very fast. When he did, it became fun for him.”

Eckert, 33, grew up in Arcadia, not far from Santa Anita. The daughter of a lawyer, she was taking riding lessons when she was 3. By the time she was a teenager, she was competing in rodeo. Roping horses was one of her favorite events, but barrel-racing was not.

“If I had barrel-raced, they would have made me compete against the girls,” she said.

Gravitating to the racetrack, Eckert hooked up with two of the game’s most prolific trainers. First she worked for Blane Schvaneveldt, the quarter horse nonpareil, then for a few years for Jack Van Berg, who won the 1987 Kentucky Derby with Alysheba. Van Berg, who has won more than 6,000 races, and Walsh are great friends.

With a steady rain falling, Eckert galloped Hanuman Highway 1 1/2 miles over a sloppy track Thursday at Churchill Downs. With more rain on the way today and Saturday, Hanuman Highway and his jockey, David Flores, are facing an off track. It’s rained on Derby day only once in the last six years and there has been only one off-track in the last seven.

“We won’t know how he’ll handle off going,” said Richard Duggan, who watched an $8,300 maiden race on an all-weather track in England in December and bought the first three finishers. For a reported $100,000, Hanuman Highway went to Sydney Belzberg of Carlsbad, who operates 70 rental-car agencies in Western Canada.

The entire crew at barn 41 was surprised that Hanuman Highway would be 50-1 on the morning line. He beat Favorite Trick, the 4-1 third choice Saturday, and Victory Gallop, only a head better than Walsh’s horse in Arkansas, is 15-1.

Maybe the odds have to do with Hanuman Highway’s being the only gelding in the 15-horse field. A gelding hasn’t won the Derby since Clyde Van Dusen, who was trained by his namesake, in 1929. The best recent finish by a gelding was Cavonnier’s second-place run against Grindstone in 1996.

Or perhaps the odds have something to do with women in the Derby. A woman jockey has never won the race--none are riding in it this year--and the only female trainer to come close was Shelley Riley, second to Lil E. Tee with Casual Lies in 1992.

“I think my horse will be more comfortable running 1 1/4 miles than any horse in the Derby,” Walsh said. “The farther they go, the better he should be.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Kentucky Derby Draw

The mixed-up post-position draw at Churchill Downs on Wednesday resulted in the trainers of the 15 horses picking their posts in this order:

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Post Horse Jockey Odds 1. Nationalore Goncalino Almeida 50-1 2. Basic Trainee John Velazquez 50-1 3. Real Quiet Kent Desormeaux 8-1 4. Halory Hunter Corey Nakatani 7-2 5. Chilito Gary Boulanger 30-1 6. Hanuman Highway David Flores 50-1 7. Favorite Trick Pat Day 4-1 8. Indian Charlie Gary Stevens 2-1 9. Rock And Roll Francisco Torres 50-1 10. Parade Ground Joe Bravo 20-1 11. Cape Town Jerry Bailey 6-1 12. Artax Chris McCarron 12-1 13. Victory Gallop Alex Solis 15-1 14. Old Trieste Robby Albarado 15-1 15. Robinwould Earlie Fires 50-1

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NOTE: All horses carry 126 pounds; Basic Trainee and Robinwould are mutuel field horses and will be coupled in the betting.

WOMEN TRAINERS IN DERBY

Female trainers in the Kentucky Derby and their result:

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Year Trainer Horse Finish 1937 Mary Hirsch No Sir 13th 1949 Mrs. Albert Roth Senecas Coin 14th 1965 Mary Keim Mr. Pak 6th 1984 Dianne Carpenter Biloxi Indian 12th 1985 Patti Johnson Fast Account 4th 1988 Dianne Carpenter Kingpost 14th 1992 Shelley Riley Casual Lies 2nd 1996 Cynthia Reese In Contention 15th

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KENTUCKY DERBY

When: Saturday

Where: Churchill Downs, Louisville

Post: 2:30 p.m.

TV: Channel 7