Dream Ride Still Hasn’t Ended for Valenzuela : After His Kentucky Derby Victory, He Returns to Hollypark and Wins Again

After a toxic overdose of “Easy Goer this” and “Easy Goer that” back in Kentucky, Patrick Valenzuela returned to Los Angeles early Sunday morning wearing a self-satisfied smile and bearing a simple, four-word message for the rest of the racing world:

“I told you so.”

Valenzuela, who punctured Easy Goer’s balloon Saturday aboard Sunday Silence, received a hero’s welcome from friends, family and later the fans at Hollywood Park, where he responded by winning the first race Sunday aboard a $16,000 claimer named Mispu.

“He came into the paddock giving me a high five, like we were the Lakers,” said Mispu’s trainer, John Sadler. “I didn’t even have to give him a leg up. He just floated onto the horse.”

Valenzuela left Louisville shortly after the Derby and touched down at LAX at midnight, getting home to Arcadia by 1 a.m. Before hitting the sheets, though, he cued up the videotape and savored the Derby telecast.

“Usually I can sleep on flights coming home, but last night every time I closed my eyes all I could see was the Derby, coming down the lane through that tunnel of noise,” said the 26-year-old jockey, who rode in two previous Derbies without winning.

“This morning, I sat down with my oldest daughter, Michelle, and made sure she knew what her dad had done,” Valenzuela said. He and his wife, Jeana, have three daughters: Michelle, 6, Kristin, 3, and Elizabeth, 9 months.

“Michelle is old enough to know what it means when I win a big race. I told her this one was special. This one was maybe the biggest of them all.”

Michelle was duly impressed. And, as far as Valenzuela is concerned, the rest of the country should have the same faith that Sunday Silence will get the better of Easy Goer every time they run, rain or shine.

“People were asking me all week if my colt was being underrated,” Valenzuela said. “I told them just the opposite. It was Easy Goer who was being overrated. I’ve felt all along that my colt could be a great horse.”

Easy Goer’s most stubborn supporters still could be heard the day after the Derby, blaming his defeat on the weather, the muddy racetrack, even on the nine-minute delay caused by the reshoeing of longshot Triple Buck.

Valenzuela had braced himself for the chorus of whining and had a ready reply.

“Let them say what they want,” the rider insisted. “Then, after Sunday Silence beats him again in the Preakness, let them come up with a new bunch of excuses.”

Valenzuela spent five days in Kentucky, riding a few races at Churchill Downs, visiting local breeding farms and stallions (including Halo, sire of Sunday Silence), and generally avoiding the social whirl of Derby week.

He spent his evenings quietly, dining with his wife, his agent, Jerry Ingordo, and sometimes with Charlie Whittingham, Sunday Silence’s trainer.

“He really didn’t want anything to do with all the parties,” Ingordo said. “He wanted to keep a low profile.”

Whenever he showed up at the track, however, Valenzuela was bombarded with questions about his tumultuous past.

Though he ranks as one of the best riders in the country, he carries the added baggage of well-publicized drug rehabilitations, self-imposed exiles, and more than a few careless riding suspensions. One year ago he was riding at an obscure New Mexico track, trying to salvage family, health and career.

“If somebody wanted to talk with me about the Derby, that was great,” Valenzuela said. “But if they wanted to talk about my personal life, I said no, because that’s exactly what it is. Personal.”

Consider the climate, however. Valenzuela was in a media fish bowl, surrounded on all sides by eastern-based jockeys who had gone dramatically public with their own drug- and alcohol-related problems.

Pat Day, who rode Easy Goer, and Chris Antley, New York’s top rider, were giving expansive interviews on their private battles.

“If that’s how they want to handle it, that’s fine,” Valenzuela said. “Maybe they have learned something and can help others by talking about it in public. My hat’s off to them.

“But I’m still discovering things about myself. I’m still growing. There are things I will talk about only with my wife and my family. The important thing is, I’m clean. I feel great. I feel . . . like I just won the Kentucky Derby.”

Valenzuela dedicated his Derby victory to the late Joe Manzi, the well-known California trainer who died of a heart attack on April 27.

“I know, if Joe had lived, he would have won a Derby someday,” said Valenzuela, who rode several major winners for Manzi.

Valenzuela was aboard the Manzi-trained Fran’s Valentine when she was disqualified after winning the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies in 1984, a professional nadir for both men. The following year, Valenzuela won the Kentucky Oaks on Fran’s Valentine.

“When I was in New Mexico last year, Joe was the first person to call me, asking me to ride in a stakes race for him,” Valenzuela recalled. “That’s the kind of friend you never forget.”

Whittingham continued his unbeatable weekend Sunday at Hollywood Park, sweeping the first three places in the $107,700 Wilshire Handicap with Claire Marine, Fitzwilliam Place and Galunpe.

It was a virtual replay of the Budweiser/Breeders’ Cup Handicap at Santa Anita on April 16, when the full-bodied Irish filly Claire Marine beat Bruce McNall’s Fitzwilliam Place by 1 3/4 lengths. This time the margin was a head, as Claire Marine got the 1 1/16 miles on the turf in a stakes record 1:39.

“Awesome,” winning jockey Chris McCarron said. “That man is awesome.”

He was talking about Whittingham, who has been in Kentucky with Sunday Silence for more than two weeks and has won four California stakes in the interim. His assistant, Rodney Rash, has been running the local show.

Favored by the crowd of 26,193 on-track, 8,529 off-track, Claire Marine paid $4.60, $2.60 and $2.10. Fitzwilliam Place, coupled with McNall’s Down Again, returned $3 and $2.10, while Galunpe paid the minimum $2.10 to show.

Horse Racing Notes

Charlie Whittingham owns Claire Marine in partnership with Sidney Port. . . . Jockeys Alex Solis and Eddie Delahoussaye were back in action Sunday after taking a day off to recover from Friday’s gruesome sixth-race accident. Both riders were airborne and landed hard, but emerged with only scrapes and bruises. “I know how to fly,” Solis said, “but I forgot how to land.” . . . ABC Derby telecast host Jim McKay dropped Pat Valenzuela’s trophy during post-race ceremonies on Saturday. “And he’d better fix it if it’s broken,” Valenzuela said.