Whittingham talent reaps second Derby

Press, 9 May 1989, Page 32

Whittingham talent reaps second Derby

By

DAVID McCARTHY

The Kentucky Derby winner, Sunday Silence, is part-owned by a member of the famous horse breeding family of Hancock but his victory owes more to the unusual talents of his trainer Charles Whittingham.

Whittingham, aged 76, was winning only his second Kentucky Derby, Ferdinand having won in 1986, but he has been the best trainer in the United States for most of the last two decades in reputation if not always in fact. Whittingham, an exMarine who learned the arts of training while assistant to another American legend, Horatio Luro, trainer of Princequillo and Northern Dancer, is unique among the leading trainers in the United States in his careful and patient placing of younger horses, his charges rarely having extensive two-year-old careers.

As a result while many of his rivals are burning out the precocious stars of juvenile events Whittingham is aiming his at older-age handicaps where he has been extraordinarily effective.

He is also a master of the one-liner which has made him one of the most often quoted trainers in America even though he does not seek publicity.

“We’ve earned enough to go to Kentucky. I hope we’ll have enough to get back,” was his quip after Sunday Silence easily won a $U532,000 handicap race on March 19. At his next start the lightly-tried Halo colt won the Santa Anita Derby by a record eleven lengths, running 1800 m in 1:47.6.

His major problem then, a tendency to run erratically when clear of other horses in the straight, returned to test him on a muddy Churchill Downs in the Kentucky Derby on Sunday, but he had enough in reserve to hold on.

His rider, Pat Valenzuela, had won the 1980 Santa Anita Derby on Codex, which had not been nominated for Kentucky, and then been dumped in favour of Angel Cordero when Codex won the Preakness Stakes, the second round of the American Triple Crown Series.

Sunday Silence is partowned by Arthur Hancock 111, owner of the Stone Farm Stud in Kentucky. His brother, Seth, runs the most famous of all American studs, Claiborne Farm, home of Secretariat among others, and founded by the Hancocks’ grandfather, “Bull.” Sunday Silence is, however, no fashionable toy of the wealthy, or at least wasn’t until the Whittingham magic went to

work. Raised at Stone Farm he was consiged to the Keeneland Sales by his owners, Oak Cliff Stable, as a yearling and bought back by Hancock, on their behalf, for SUSI7,OOO, his rather small size and cow hocks added to a moderate breeding background deterring would-be buyers. Sunday Silence was then shipped out to California and entered in a Ready-To-Run Sale with a reserve of SUSSO,OOO. Hancock bought him back again for $U532,000 and then the horse was hurt when the float returning him to Kentucky overturned, on the way. Sent back to Whittingham the horse showed promise. The trainer bought a half-share for $U525,000 and passed on half of that to a friend.

Sunday Silence ran second in his debut last October and had only two more two-year-old races, winning one by ten lengths. His dam, Wishing Well, was a high-class race mare winning several good handicaps in California for $U5381,625 and was the aged “Mare of the Year” there in 1981. She was by a little-known stallion called Understanding, a great-grandson of Palestine which left two stakes winners and her dam, which did not win, was a daughter of a mare which did not race.

Whittingham has had remarkable success with former European gallopers in recent years, his patient and thorough methods and his experience with handicappers giving him an edge over the opposition. Included among his lesser stars was Tell, a Hollywood Derby winner, and sire of New Zealand’s current boom stallion, Pompeii Court. Palace Music, Vai Dan-

seur, Dahar, Rosedale, Estrapade, Dahlia and Exceller are some of his best-known charges while Perrault won the Budweiser Million for the stable after moving from France and Greinton, which Whittingham bought for $U5550,000, was another good example of his patient methods.

Whittingham allowed Greinton five months to acclimatise and the son of Green Dancer responded in the best possible way winning the Hollywood Gold Cup and the SUSI.I million Santa Anita Handicap, then the richest handicap ever run. Whittingham has produced the winners of eight Hollywood Gold Cups and rates Ack Ack, the first of those, as one of his favourite horses. The U.S. “Horse of the Year” in 1971, Ack Ack, from the family of Tom Rolfe, War Hawk and Cocky Golfer, continued Whittingham’s amazing success in California handicaps. Between 1957, shortly after he set up on his own account, and 1982, Whittingham won 76 stakes races at Hollywood Park alone. He has trained the winners of nearly 80 Group One races. Whittingham has had a close association over the years with Willie Shoemaker and it was on another Whittingham handicap star, Lord At War, that Shoemaker topped the SUSIOO million in stakes won as a rider in 1985, a remarkable achievement given stakes levels during the bulk of his career which began in 1949.

Shoemaker won the Kentucky Derby on Ferdinand after a twenty-one-year drought and at the same time the wily Whittingham, who rarely races horses in Kentucky, took a swipe at the reliance on drugs many American trainers have.

“Not bad for hay, oats and water,” was his laconic remark after the race, one somewhat softer than an earlier comment when interviewed about drugs in racing. “In the days of Wyatt Earp and those boys they stamped out the criminals by hanging and shooting but I suppose we can’t do that th6se days.” Whittingham has now trained seven national champions from his California base. He has won the Sunset Handicap ten times and the Californian, another major handicap in the state, seven times.