Misters Big

Every year, when spring rains start the bluegrass sprouting, some high-strung U.S. race horse suddenly gets the attention usually reserved for movie stars and .400 hitters. Servants cater to his whims, columnists dog his hoofsteps, and genealogists start excavating the deepest roots of his family tree. He has a name--in 1961 it was Carry Back, last year it was Ridan--but to railbirds he is always known simply as Mr. Big: the favorite for the Kentucky Derby.

This year there are two Misters Big--and for good reason. Harry Guggenheim's Never Bend and Rex Ellsworth's Candy Spots already rank head-and-hindquarters above the rest of U.S. three-year-olds. When they meet for a showdown on May 4 at Churchill Downs, the race will be one of the year's great sports attractions.

East v. West. As a two-year-old, Never Bend won seven of ten races and an all-time record $402,969; two weeks ago he clearly stamped himself the best in the East by coasting to a five-length victory in Florida's $136,600 Flamingo Stakes. The West's champion, Candy Spots, has an even cleaner record: he has won all his five races, and on the same day that Never Bend won the Flamingo, he skirted a four-horse pile-up to win California's $143,300 Santa Anita Derby by 1 1/2 lengths.

Each horse is impeccably sired: Never Bend by the Irish stallion Nasrullah (other offspring: Nashua, Bold Ruler, Jaipur), Candy Spots by the Argentine stakes winner Nigromante. As a matter of fact, the two horses seem so closely matched that even the oddsmakers are having trouble. Last week in Tijuana, Mexico bookies quoted Never Bend at 2 to 1 to win the Kentucky Derby, Candy Spots at 3 to 1.

But there the similarity ends. A medium-sized colt with a shining dark bay coat, Never Bend likes to grab an early lead and fight off challengers. Candy Spots is a strapping chestnut with curious black and white spots on his rump, who prefers to dwell in the pack, then turn on a withering burst of speed in the stretch. And the horses could hardly have more contrasting jockeys. Never Bend's regular rider is fiery Panamanian Manuel Ycaza, 25, whose terrible-tempered tactics earn him almost as much time on suspension as in the saddle. Candy Spots's jockey is coldly efficient Willie Shoemaker, 31, the top money-winning jockey ($2,916,844 last year) in the world.

Cowboy v. Millionaire. For horsemen the 1963 Kentucky Derby also shapes up as a contest of purpose and theory. Rex Ellsworth has come a far piece since he showed up in Kentucky in 1933 with $600 in his poke and a yen to buy some brood mares. His mercurial colt Swaps outran Nashua in the 1955 Derby, and his horses won $1,154,454 last year. Now Ellsworth owns a 440-acre ranch in Chino, Calif., 1,000 sq. mi. of range land in Arizona and New Mexico, and about 500 head of high-priced thoroughbred horseflesh. At 55 he still insists, "I am not an ex-cowboy, I am a cowboy." He scoffs at the idea that horses can think, and trains his racers in ways (cuffing their ears to teach them response to the reins) that are heartily disliked by Eastern horse lovers.

To Guggenheim, 72, a mining executive, plantation owner, publisher (Newsday) and philanthropist, racing is a hobby, not a business. He has spent millions making his Cain Hoy Stable one of the most formidable in U.S. racing. His 25-1 longshot, Dark Star, won the 1953 Derby --handing Native Dancer the only defeat of his career. Guggenheim does not believe in overworking a race horse. "My only concern with racing today is to try to keep a horse sound," he says. But Never Bend has been so busy that he stands a good chance of becoming U.S. racing's first three-year-old millionaire.

Guggenheim and Ellsworth have matched their prize colts once before. Never Bend and Candy Spots met as two-year-olds at last summer's $357,250 Arlington-Washington Futurity in Chicago. It was a bad day all around for Guggenheim. Candy Spots won by a half-length, and Never Bend's Jockey Ycaza was grounded for 60 days for a "completely unwarranted" claim of foul. Yet both horses were operating under handicaps. Never Bend had sprained a back muscle at Saratoga, and Candy Spots, still green, was running in only his third race. "Candy Spots won magnificently," Guggenheim says graciously--but he does not consider the race a true test of the better horse. That comes on Derby Day.

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