Legend spreads his wings

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By GARY SHELTON

© St. Petersburg Times, published May 7, 2000

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- This is the anointed one. This is the one a sport has been waiting for.

This, finally, is the one worth the hype.

After the way Fusaichi Pegasus ran away from the field, after the way he took a supposedly deep Kentucky Derby and made the rest of the horses look like job applicants for a pony ride, can there be any doubt?

This is the real deal. This is the mark of greatness. This is Fusaichi Pegasus, Superhorse.

For two decades now, those in the sport of kings have waited for a horse worthy of royalty. Every year, they would look over the field in search of that spark, that magic. Then the Derby would come, and reality along with it, and the waiting would continue.

That all ended Saturday, when this huge, graceful horse weaved through a packed field, then, at the three-quarter pole, turned into a sports car. By the time he crossed the finish line, Fusaichi Pegasus was in front of the field and gaining on the legends.

This was amazing. This was the kind of performance that leads to talk of history, the kind that makes horsemen squint as they try to remember the last horse who left them feeling this way. No, not Unbridled. No, not Alysheba. Spectacular Bid? Yeah, that seemed to be the one worth the comparison.

Yeah, yeah. The past three years, horses have flirted with the Triple Crown. Don't confuse that with greatness. But after watching Fusaichi Pegasus spot the field a head start, then calmly blow it away, you got the feeling you were watching a horse worth remembering.

Who is going to beat him? Short of Fusaichi Pegasus taking a wrong turn, no one in this field looked up the task. Oh, Red Bullet is rested and waiting for the Preakness. And Aptitude was bred for the Belmont. But Fusaichi Pegasus has beaten both of them now.

If he could talk, you can assume the colt would guarantee victory by this point. There is an arrogance to him, an attitude that makes you half expect him to stick out his tongue as he passes another horse. He is Muhammad Ali, Joe Namath, John McEnroe. He is stylish, stubborn, rebellious. He is impulsive, playful, hard to control. And, it turned out, that was the field's only hope. The only horse who could have beaten Fusaichi Pegasus on Saturday was, well, Fusaichi Pegasus.

Other trainers whispered as much throughout the week. A rogue, they called him, a keg of dynamite as likely to blow up in his jockey's face as to explode down the stretch. At times, he came across as an energetic third-grader, who gets bored and becomes simply too much for the teacher to control.

As it turned out, however, his temperament was perfect, even when he got off to a poor start. At the three-quarter-mile mark, he was 11th and seemed boxed in. But then he began to move like Barry Sanders in the hole, weaving and slowing and starting, finding daylight and then surging.

"This pretty boy can run," jockey Kent Desormeaux said.

There is power here, and there is style. Owner Fusao Sekiguchi recognized it when he paid $4-million for the horse as a yearling. This was a horse after his own heart. Sekiguchi said he would bid $5-million, perhaps more, for such a horse. Even then, he would have gotten a bargain.

The truth be told, there is some style to Sekiguchi, too. If Little Richard were Japanese, he would be Fusao Sekiguchi. Sekiguchi, 64, wears his black hair pulled back in a ponytail and a rock star's sunglasses over a small mustache. He walks on a polished cane, and his tie matches his handkerchief.

"When I paid so much money, the people in Japan thought I was crazy," he said, then smiled as an interpreter repeated it. "But I like to be on the edge. As soon as I laid eyes on him, I had to have him. He has so much character, I knew he would become a hero."

It has become truly international, this business of horse racing. Saturday, the Japanese businessman held off the sheik from Dubai and the prince from Saudi Arabia and the rest. But something in Sekiguchi has always loved America.

He was 9 years old when the soldiers came, and the part of Osaka he lived in had been reduced to rubble by bombs. He was hungry. But the American servicemen gave him food, and they befriended him. Even when it was not popular to be pro-American, Sekiguchi was.

It was in those days Sekiguchi heard of things American, including this race called the Kentucky Derby. When he first laid eyes on Fusaichi Pegasus, that was the race he thought of. Never mind that most millionaire yearlings add up to very little. Sekiguchi was sure. "It was his destiny," Sekiguchi said.

That, and perhaps more.

There are no longer any limits to the horse who finally arrived in the sport of horse racing Saturday afternoon. This talented, temperamental steed who will make you learn to pronounce his name, who will dare you to forget it.

Oh, who knows what happens? Perhaps he suffers an injury. Perhaps trainer Neil Drysdale decides not to run him in the Preakness. Perhaps he runs a bad race.

For now, however, he is magic. For now, he has wings.

For now, the thought is this: Catch him if you can.

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