Mark Guidry lost money by leaving the Chicago racing scene he had dominated for a decade. But he found his Kentucky Derby horse, a speedball named Balto Star who is the one to catch in Saturday’s 127th running of America’s most renowned race.
Guidry has ridden more than 4,000 winners. He has won 18 titles at Sportsman’s Park, Hawthorne Race Course and Arlington Park and he holds the Sportsman’s and Hawthorne single-season records. He has ridden two horses that were voted the best in North America–1991 Horse of the Year Black Tie Affair and 1998 male grass champion Buck’s Boy.
Unfortunately for Guidry, someone else was riding Black Tie Affair and Buck’s Boy when they won the elite races that thrust them into the national limelight.
He was typecast as a Chicago jockey, and the riders who had proven themselves performing day-in and day-out at the highest level in Southern California, Florida, Kentucky and New York were the ones in demand for the Breeders’ Cup and Triple Crown races and their most prestigious preps.
Last spring Guidry made his Kentucky Derby debut, finishing 10th on Deputy Warlock, an unheralded member of the mutuel field.
Then, with Arlington reopening and his 40th birthday drawing nigh, Guidry and his agent, Dennis Cooper, decided to try to latch onto shippers from Kentucky when they came north for stakes and allowance races.
“I got to know people because I was fortunate enough to be the leading rider,” Guidry said. “If they shipped up for a stakes or an allowance race, the jockey standings is the first place they looked for a rider.”
Guidry became the jockey of choice for such esteemed visiting horsemen as Elliott Walden and Niall O’Callaghan. During the meeting he embellished his reputation by riding career winner 4,000 on July 1 and wound up the Arlington champion with 132 winners.
But, with Hawthorne running the last leg on the Chicago circuit and the shippers from Kentucky dwindling to very few, Guidry and Cooper could see problems down the road. In catering to Kentucky clientele at Arlington they’d put the Chicago horsemen who’d be moving on to Hawthorne on the back burner.
“Coming into Hawthorne we knew we were going to have to work extremely hard to get your everyday horses for the $5,000 races, the $10,000 races,” Guidry remembered. “I said [to Cooper]: `If I’m going to have to work that hard to prove myself again after all these years, we might as well go somewhere else and prove ourselves there too.'”
Cooper concurred and they left to spend the autumn in Kentucky. After winning two of his 11 races at Keeneland, Guidry won 23 at Churchill Downs to finish third in the standings behind Pat Day and Shane Sellers.
Their next stop was the top-of-the-line Gulfstream Park winter meeting. This was where Guidry was hoping to find his Kentucky Derby horse.
But, as usual, established jockeys from New York and Kentucky plucked the live mounts in the prep races. Although there were 13 horses in the Florida Derby, Guidry watched the race on the TV set in the jockeys’ room.
Guidry was philosophical. “It wasn’t a waste,” he said. “We made good connections.”
One of the “connections” was trainer Todd Pletcher.
In late March, Cooper got a call from Pletcher, requesting Guidry’s services in the Spiral Stakes at Turfway Park in Kentucky. The horse’s name, Balto Star, didn’t ring a bell. When Guidry checked the gelding’s resume he discovered a New York-based runner who’d failed to finish in the mutuel money in three starts as a 2-year-old but at age 3 had won two of his first three starts by a total of 23 1/4 lengths.
“Mark had worked a couple for me at Gulfstream and ridden some for me,” Pletcher said. “He came to the paddock with a good attitude. I did not have high expectations for the horses he rode for me. He rode them well and enthusiastically.
“I had watched him ride quite a bit in Chicago, mostly watching the races on TV, and he was dominating the circuit. I kept an eye on him at Gulfstream, and I thought he was making the most of his opportunities. When Balto Star had won his last race at Aqueduct, his numbers on the [handicapping] sheets were very high. The Spiral looked like a good spot for him.”
Dispatched from the starting gate at odds of 6-1, Balto Star crossed the finish line as the front-running winner in a 12 3/4-length landslide. “I rode him hard and he surprised me,” Guidry said.
Neither Guidry nor horseplayers were surprised when Balto Star went to Oaklawn Park to make his next and most recent start in the Arkansas Derby. The front-running 8-5 favorite lived up to expectations with a compelling 4 1/2-length conquest.
“I didn’t ask him for anything in Arkansas,” Guidry said. “He did that all by himself. He has a lot of natural speed and he carries his speed real well. There’s no wasted motion. He’s very professional. Right now, this horse’s heart is as big as the state of Texas.
“There’s no doubt in my mind he will run well Saturday. When I left Chicago last fall I was hoping to be where I’m at today. This isn’t about money. If it was about money, I’d never have left–I’m making half of what I made there. This is about opportunity.”
Derby candidates
1. Point Given
The powerful victory in the Santa Anita Derby was Point Given’s second in as many starts this year and the fifth in an eight-race career that has Triple Crown potential written all over it. Although the last two Derby winners to have two prior starts at age 3 were Sunny’s Halo in 1983 and Jet Pilot in 1947, the trend is toward lighter racing.
2. Congaree
This even more lightly raced son of 1991 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winner Arazi combines with Point Given to give America’s leading trainer, Bob Baffert, the twin towers of the probable field. He is coming off a decisive victory in the Wood Memorial.
3. Millennium Wind
All-time leading jockey Laffit Pincay, who is back at the top of his game, will ride the Blue Grass Stakes winner who is a half-brother to 1999 Derby and Preakness winner Charismatic.
4. Monarchos
After capturing the Florida Derby to extend his winning streak to three races, Monarchos finished a non-threatening second behind Congaree in the Wood.
5. Balto Star
The landslide front-running winner of the Arkansas Derby and Spiral Stakes is piloted by perennial Chicago champion Mark Guidry.
6. A.P. Valentine
Trainer Nick Zito is trying to make the son of 1992 Belmont winner A.P. Indy his third Derby winner and the first for owner Rick Pitino.
7. Dollar Bill
Pat Day rides a colt whose most noteworthy conquest came on a sloppy track at Churchill Downs in last November’s Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes.
8. Songandaprayer
Bobby Hurley, the point guard on Duke’s 1992 NCAA championship team, is the principal owner of the winner of the Fountain of Youth.
9. Thunder Blitz
Owner-breeder Frank Stronach and trainer Joe Orseno, who knocked off Fusaichi Pegasus with Red Bullet in last year’s Preakness, are trying for another coup with the Flamingo winner.
10. Express Tour
Following his sweep of the Florida Stallion Series at Calder last year, he was sold to Sheikh Mohammed al Maktoum for a reported $1 million and taken to Dubai, where he won the $2 million UAE Derby.
11. Fifty Stars
Chicago circuit regular Steve Asmussen trains the stretch-running winner of the Louisiana Derby.
12. Invisible Ink
Like Point Given, this third-place finisher in the Florida Derby is a son of 1995 Kentucky Derby winner Thunder Gulch.
13. Jamaican Rum
This long shot placed behind Balto Star in the Arkansas Derby and showed behind Point Given in the San Felipe.
14. Keats
Trainer Niall O’Callaghan’s front-running winner of the Lexington, who raced in England and Ireland last year, is on the possible list.
15. Percy Hope
A two-length triumph in the Lone Star Derby was his ticket to the Kentucky Derby.
16. Talk Is Money
After running third in the Flamingo, the well-bred colt was second in the Federico Tesio.
17. Startac
Following his stretch-running Turf Paradise Derby victory, he lost the El Camino Real Derby (distant second) and California Derby (fourth).
18. Arctic Boy
He has won just one of seven starts and was last in the 11-horse Arkansas Derby.
Handicapped by Neil Milbert.
