He Has Best Of Luck in Pulling the Upset

LOUISVILLE, Ky. —  Asked to single out some of the 200-plus stakes wins that have meant the most during a distinguished career, trainer Allen Jerkens quickly mentioned Beau Purple’s victory in the Suburban Handicap in 1962.

“That was the first time I won a $100,000 race,” Jerkens said.

It was also one of three times that Beau Purple beat the great Kelso in 1962-63. Kelso won five consecutive horse-of-the-year titles, starting in 1960, and in most polls of famous race horses of this century he’s ranked fourth--behind Man o’ War, Secretariat and Citation.

Kelso raced for Allaire du Pont’s Bohemia Stable, and about 10 years after Beau Purple’s repeated success against her sturdy gelding, Du Pont hired Jerkens to train her horses in New York. Du Pont and Jerkens have won several important races together, but none is bigger than the Belmont Stakes on Saturday, when they will try to play giant-killer against Charismatic as he tries to sweep the Triple Crown. Jerkens will saddle Best Of Luck, a late-running colt who didn’t run in the first two Triple Crown races, the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness, but won the Peter Pan Stakes at Belmont Park on May 23.

Giant-killer? That’s a poor word choice around Jerkens’ Belmont Park barn. Despite his renowned expertise as a horseman and his election into the Racing Hall of Fame in 1975, Jerkens, at age 70, remains a shy, soft-spoken man whose style doesn’t lend itself to labeling accomplishments.

By any appellation, though, Jerkens’ horses have knocked off some of racing’s biggest names. In a career than spans almost 50 years, Jerkens’ horses have beaten national champions 18 times. This is just a partial list:

* Besides the Suburban, Beau Purple also won the 1962 Man o’War Stakes and the 1963 Widener Handicap at the expense of Kelso.

* In 1963, Jerkens’ Pocosaba upset Cicada, a three-time champion distaffer, in the Black Helen Handicap.

* Jerkens saddled Handsome Boy, who defeated Buckpasser in the 1967 Brooklyn Handicap. Buckpasser had been horse of the year in 1966.

* In 1973, the year Secretariat won the Triple Crown, Jerkens’ horses beat him twice. Onion, not considered stakes caliber, won the Travers at Saratoga two months after Secretariat won the Belmont, and Prove Out also beat Secretariat at Belmont in the Woodward Stakes. In a 21-race career, Secretariat lost only three other starts.

* Last year, Jerkens won the Jockey Club Gold Cup with Wagon Limit, over a field that included Skip Away and Gentlemen. Skip Away was later voted horse of the year for 1998.

These ambushes were not accidents, but they weren’t the result of some grand upset plan either. Jerkens said that he prepared Onion, Prove Out and the others much the way he would groom any horse for a particular race. Above all else, he is not a trainer who would send a horse into a race just to grab a headline.

“The worst thing that can happen to a trainer is for a horse to come out of a race hurt,” Jerkens said. “If there’s any chance that that might happen, you don’t have any business running the horse in the first place.”

Best Of Luck, who had never won a stake before he came from 15 lengths back to win the Peter Pan, struggled early in his career, much like Charismatic and Real Quiet did before they gained stardom in the Triple Crown. Best Of Luck ran six times before he won a race and even now he has won only three of 11 starts. Before winning last year’s Derby and Preakness, Real Quiet’s record was two wins in 12 starts, and it also took him seven races to break his maiden. Charismatic won his first race in his sixth start and had three victories in 14 starts going into the Derby.

“[Best Of Luck] is just not going to win many races with the running style he has,” Jerkens said. “He had shown speed in his workouts, but the first time he ran, he fell so far back that we thought he wasn’t trying. But then he made up a lot of ground and almost won the race.”

That was last September at Belmont Park. Best Of Luck’s next five races were similar, his best finishes being another second and two thirds. He won for the first time in March at Gulfstream Park, chalking up a 6 1/2-length victory at 1 1/8 miles. Then he won a 1 1/8-mile allowance race at Aqueduct before Jerkens introduced him to stakes company. In the Wood Memorial, Best Of Luck was in ninth place early before finishing second to Adonis, beaten by two lengths. In the Withers, run at Aqueduct the same day as the Kentucky Derby, Best Of Luck trailed the field early before another rally netted second place. Successful Appeal beat him by a half-length.

“This horse is still an immature baby,” jockey Jean-Luc Samyn said after the 1 1/8-mile Peter Pan. “He’s still learning the game. He relaxed early and moving into the far turn he grabbed a hold of the bit and took off. He really finished up in the stretch.”

Best Of Luck reminds Jerkens of some top horses.

“Whirlaway [Triple Crown champion in 1941] and Carry Back [the Derby-Preakness winner in 1961] ran a lot like this horse,” Jerkens said. “So did Stymie [a horse bought for $1,500 in the ‘40s who went on to earn a then-record $918,485]. They were horses that would drop back and then explode in the stretch to win their races.”

Jerkens said he and Allaire du Pont have seldom discussed the races in which Beau Purple beat Kelso.

“Somebody else might bring it up once in a while when we’re out to dinner,” Jerkens said. “But that’s the only time we might have talked about it.”

Beau Purple’s success against Kelso had nothing to do with Du Pont eventually hiring Jerkens.

“[Du Pont] bought King’s Bishop as a stallion prospect in 1972,” Jerkens said. “That horse had always been a favorite of mine, and I had been instrumental in arranging the sale. I was the private trainer for Jack Dreyfus [Hobeau Farm] at the time, but then an arrangement was made where half of my horses would be for Dreyfus and the other half for Mrs. Du Pont.”

Du Pont has never started a horse in the Belmont and Jerkens, despite winning many of the major stakes in New York, has had only two Belmont starters, finishing fifth with Virginia Rapids in 1993 and ninth with Limit Out last year. If Jerkens adds to his list of historic upsets next Saturday, Best Of Luck would be sort of a payback to Allaire du Pont for the times his Beau Purple beat her Kelso almost four decades ago.

Chasing the TRIPLE CROWN

Charismatic is trying to become only the 12th horse to win the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes

BELMONT STAKES

WHEN: Saturday

WHERE: Belmont Race Course, Elmont, N.Y.

TV: Channel 7, 1:30 p.m.