She Shows Her Colors, but It Doesn’t Matter

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Take that, you male chauvinist you-know-whats! Let’s see your male egos alibi this one away!

A great gorgeous spotted lady, with these long shapely legs that looked as if they belonged to a Bolshoi dancer, humiliated the best 3-year-old boy horses in the country at the Kentucky Derby Saturday. She was never headed. She ran them into the ground with contemptuous ease, then held off the charge of the only one not convinced by then.

They said a filly couldn’t win this race, that the ones who had--2 in 113 years--were flukes. They said a roan had never, and, probably would never, win, that a horse who can’t make up her mind what color to be could never negotiate this Hall of Horrors race track, that this was no place for a lady.

You think of all the disaster areas in sports. You think of the 2-yard-line of the Chicago Bears, you think of the ropes in a Dempsey fight, the top of the key with Magic Johnson coming downcourt with the ball, the pitcher’s mound with the bases loaded and Aaron up--and they all look like a picnic in the park compared to the homestretch at Churchill Downs.

This is the scariest piece of real estate on earth this side of Dracula’s castle. The hopes and dreams of a thousand horses, owners, trainers and riders lay bleaching in the sun along its 1,234 1/2 feet. At night, you can hear the ghostly screams of hundreds of guys who came into it leading by daylight and dreaming of roses.

It’s where the race begins, not ends. It’s where a Sham found out he really couldn’t and never would be able to beat a Secretariat, it’s where Native Dancer found out he had run out of room to catch Dark Star, it’s where Shoemaker stood in the irons too soon. It’s Heartbreak Hotel, it’s where guys find out their two pair aren’t good enough, it’s not a straightaway, it’s a cemetery.

Winning Colors, an Amazonian filly with a stride as long as Rhode Island, came into this pastoral setting Saturday with her ears pricking, full of run, looking for horses. If she knew what she was getting into, she didn’t show it. She She dug in and invited the boys to come, catch me if you can--like an Ali inviting a George Foreman or Sonny Liston to come mix it up.

Only one horse took her up.

Forty Niner was the only male in striking distance. The most consistent (seasoned) colt in the race, he had run a rather strange course this day. He ranged up alongside the filly in the early going, then dropped the challenge, stayed out in the middle of the track, then took out after the leader again. “Come on, Pat!” implored the crowd signaling the favoritism the Kentucky folks had for the hometown rider, Pat Day, who wins about 40% of all the races over this track, took dead aim on the filly.

Neither the rider nor the horse could catch the lady this day. The margin diminished until it was the closest finish in the Derby in 19 years--but Winning Colors had safely come through No Man’s Land.

Had she stolen the race? Was this a heist, not a contest?

Well, Kentucky knew what she was going to do from the day she got off the plane. Winning Colors doesn’t bludgeon horses from behind. She shows the flag. She doesn’t ambush a field.

Woodford C. Stephens, a trainer who thinks the Triple Crown belongs to him and that all California tracks run downhill on cardboard, was emphatic that no filly was going to beat his horses (Forty Niner, Cefis). “They let her get loose in California,” he jeered.

Well, they let her get loose in Kentucky Saturday, too. She had everything her own way in this race which a horseman would rather win than any other.

She rushed out of the gate but was reasonably unhurried to keep the lead in fractions of 23, 46 4/5, 1:11 2/5 and 1:36. Winning Colors can run these splits in leg irons. “I know she can run first quarters in 22 and halves in 45,” said her jockey, Gary Stevens. “She’d done that in her last three races.”

Running a half in 46 4/5 and 6 furlongs in 1:11 2/5, Winning Colors must have felt she’d taken a cab.

Marathoners call the head of their stretch, 4/5ths of the way out, the “wall of pain.” Horsemen call theirs the “wall of noise.” It’s where the roar of the crowd breasts the horse like an oncoming wave crashing over rocks. It’s where the hardboots of Kentucky think female horses should feel the pressure of gender.

Winning Colors dug in. She ran her race right to the wire. The stride didn’t shorten, the resolve falter. She held off the determined Forty Niner.

They said trainer Wayne Lukas couldn’t win the Kentucky Derby. It obsessed him and he was 0-for-forever. The last filly favorite he ran here finished next-to-last. The home stretch ate her alive.

Wayne Lukas can win a race anywhere. About a week before Winning Colors won the Santa Anita Derby, a writer asked Lukas why he didn’t just duck criticism and enter his horse in the filly-mare Kentucky Oaks. Why buck a race where the rate of feminine success was 2-in-113?

“Because she’s the best horse in America,” Lukas said. “The best filly?” someone wanted to know. “The best horse,” Lukas insisted. “There’s nothing like her out there.”

He looks more right today than Woody Stephens.

Is she Superwoman? Is she Joan of Arc, Belle Starr, Annie Oakley, Mata Hari of the race track, a lady who beat the men at their own game?

Well, they have to come get her. As Lukas quipped: “This race is the toughest race of the Triple Crown to win, right?”

No female has ever won the Triple Crown. But, look at it this way: No colt is going to increase the male margin this year. And the way she won this one, there’s no horse in the thing who knows what she looks like from the front. They wouldn’t be able to recognize her on the street.

Was she a surprise to those who knew her best? “A few months ago, when she was 100-1 on the winter book, the hot-walkers and grooms and sweepers around the stable passed the hat and collected $2,000,” Lukas laughed. “They went down to Mexico and bet it on her

They knew she was one gal who would be where the boys aren’t.”