The Son Shines Bright

And out of McCarron, too. who rode Alysheba for the first time in the Blue Grass and was just beginning to feel like his old self in the saddle. His had been a long, difficult convalescence, but one made as short as possible by the work he put into it. He exercised avidly to get back into shape, using Nautilus machines to regain his strength and fitness. "He worked very hard," said McCarron's wife, Judy. "He bought an exercise bicycle, and he'd sit in front of the TV and ride it 10 miles a day. He did that for weeks."

He worked that hard, in part because he did not want to miss the Derby. He had twice finished second in the race—on Desert Wine in 1983 and on Bold Arrangement in 1986—and, this year more than ever, he did not want to pass up a chance to win it. "I always wanted it bad, but I think I wanted it more this year because I was coming back from that injury," McCarron said. "I knew it would mean just that much more."

McCarron started exercising horses in late February, and on March 12 he rode in his first race since the spill. Shortly after that, Pat Day, who had become Alysheba's regular rider, committed to the eventual Derby favorite, Demons Begone. After speaking with McCarron, Van Berg, feeling no reluctance in handing his colt over to a man who had been virtually idle for five months, offered him the mount. "Ft took me a couple of weeks to really feel comfortable about riding in a race," McCarron said. "There was a lot of anxiety, some tension, but after a few races I lost that. The past three weeks I've been feeling much, much stronger."

As things turned out, McCarron needed all of his old self simply to survive the race, much less win it. This was one of the roughest Derbies in years, and not just for Alysheba. The first turn looked like a hockey game, not a horse race. The winner of the Blue Grass, War, lost all chance in the bumping and shoving there.

"It's a wonder I came back," said War's rider, Herb McCauley. "They almost put me over the fence on the first turn. My horse was actually leaning over the top of the rail with half his body."

The second victim of the roughhousing on the turn was Masterful Advocate, a 6-1 shot. "He really got banged around on the first turn," said jockey Laffit Pincay Jr. Even Alysheba was briefly involved in the jostling. He bumped into Demons Begone, but that colt was going nowhere anyway. Jockey Day pulled him to a halt down the back-stretch when the Demon started bleeding heavily from the nostrils.

Cryptoclearance, another 6-1 shot, also got slammed around at the first turn. "He caught some other horses coming in so fast that they bumped him into the rail," said Jose Santos, his jockey. Santos saw blood on his silks and thought Crypto had been cut. But, in fact, the blood came from Demons Begone, who was running ahead of him.

This was no picture Derby, for sure, and the running time on a fast racetrack, 2:03[2/5], made it the slowest since Cannonade came home in 2:04 in 1974. Unquestionably, Alysheba's stumbling and swerving for running room affected the final time. He ran the last quarter in :26[2/5], trotting-horse time, but there is no plausible explanation for why so many horses came up so empty.

What is clear is that the best horse got the best ride, and it could not have come on a day more fitting for the colt's owners, whose family returned to the thoroughbred game in 1985 after leaving it 18 years ago. Dorothy Scharbauer's father, Fred Turner Jr., won the 85th Kentucky Derby with Tomy Lee, Bill Shoemaker up. In fact, announced Dorothy's husband, Clarence Scharbauer, "it was 28 years ago today—I mean May 2, 1959—that Dorothy's father won the Kentucky Derby with Tomy Lee. Dorothy and I were there. It was really a thrill that day. And, boy, it's a helluva thrill today."