Eight Belles' breakdown turns trainer Jones somber

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- A few days before the Kentucky Derby, trainer Larry Jones told a story about a parrot named Buddy. His wife gave him the African grey last Christmas Eve.

''A few days later, the little [squeaker] bit me and drew blood,'' the drawling Jones said. ''He almost became the most expensive New Year's Eve dinner I ever had.''

There was no laughter when Jones met the media after Saturday's 134th Run for the Roses. Yards after finishing second, his filly Eight Belles broke both front ankles and had to be humanely destroyed in front of 157,770 at Churchill Downs and a national TV audience.

''Her ears were up, and she was galloping out,'' said Jones, 51. ''We were all kind of high-fiving, and we thought we had had quite a weekend. Then Kent Desormeaux [the jockey aboard Derby winner Big Brown] come back looking too somber. Then I'm fighting through the crowd, and I heard a horse broke down. I figured it had been one of the ones that had been struggling to finish. Then I heard it was Eight Belles.''

In that instant, a notable run of May glory at Churchill for Jones skidded into sadness. Last year in the Run for the Roses, his Hard Spun finished second to Street Sense. On Friday, his Proud Spell won the $561,000 Kentucky Oaks, a race Eight Belles was originally entered in. Had Eight Belles won the Derby, Jones would have become the third trainer to complete an Oaks-Derby double, and the first to do it with two fillies.

''She was so calm in the paddock,'' Jones said, his voice choking. ''We had her convinced that half the people here had come out to see her. I know you're going to get criticized for running her against 19 boys. But that had nothing to do with it. She ran the race of her life and went out like a champion to us.''

Eight Belles closed her career with a paycheck for $400,000. That boosted her career ledger to 9 5-3-1 with earnings of $708,650. Her name was a feminized tribute to Eight Bells, the Maine musing grounds of American realist painter Andrew Wyeth.

For the four weeks since the Illinois Derby, national experts had been disparaging the way the Hawthorne spring centerpiece had been run and the talent level it had attracted. Once Eddie Baird gunned Louis Roussel's lightly regarded Recapturetheglory to an early lead, the charted running positions of the first five finishers never changed. Some cognoscenti felt that was conclusive evidence of the field's limited talent.

The Stickney oval and its marqueed three-year-olds achieved a measure of redemption in the Kentucky Derby when Denis of Cork (27-1) rallied from 20th to finish third and Recapturetheglory (49-1) -- again under Baird -- prompted the pace and hung on to finish fifth.

Of Recapturetheglory, Baird said: ''The crowd spooked him leaving the paddock and he went to bucking and dropping his head. He just dropped me in the tunnel. Once we got on the track, he was fine. I thought my horse ran very game.''

Dennis Carroll, the trainer of Denis of Cork, said: ''His race in the Illinois Derby [fifth, as the even-money favorite] was not a reflection of him, it was a reflection of us. That race was a complete throwout. He came back and trained beautifully.''

Smooth Air -- from the Chicago-based Mount Joy Stables of Brian Burns and family -- had a tough trip en route to 11th place. He broke in the air under Derby rookie Manoel Cruz and was later forced six-wide. Said Cruz: ''One of the [starting-gate] crew grabbed his ears and I yelled, 'Loose!'' He broke badly.''

Rick Dutrow confirmed that his Derby champion Big Brown will run in the Preakness on May 17. But he cautioned that he has no masterful training tricks up his sleeve for the second leg of thoroughbred racing's Triple Crown.

''I love to train horses up to a race, but in two weeks, there's not much you can do,'' Dutrow said. ''There'll be new shooters and I don't know what kind of post we'll get. Thankfully, he was born to run, born with this talent, and all we have to do is stay out of the way and not do anything stupid.''