Criminal Type scored a far-reaching victory in the Pimlico Special Saturday. The 5-year-old son of Alydar ran the fastest 1 3/16 miles in Pimlico history, sent his trainer, Wayne Lukas, over the $100-million mark in career purses and exposed a story about how fine the line is between being a hero and a heel as a jockey's agent.
Under Jose Santos, who was riding him for the first time, Criminal Type shadowed Ruhlmann all the way around, edged past him with about 50 yards left and won by a neck in the first $1-million race ever run in Maryland. Ruhlmann, the second betting choice at 2-1, finished 1 1/4 lengths ahead of De Roche, a 34-1 shot who finished 1 1/2 lengths in front of Mi Selecto.
Opening Verse, made the 3-2 favorite by a crowd of 15,850 on a cool, overcast day, flattened out in the stretch and wound up fifth, beaten by about 3 1/4 lengths. Wind Splitter finished sixth, and after him in the 10-horse field came Silver Survivor, Gorgeous, With Approval and Music Merci.
Criminal Type's time was 1:53, breaking by a fifth of a second the record that Blushing John set in winning the Special last year. The Special is the same distance as the Preakness, which will be run here next Saturday, and the fastest Preakness times have been Secretariat's unofficial 1:53 2/5 clocking in 1973 and Tank's Prospect's matching time in 1985.
Criminal Type was the fourth betting choice and paid $17.40, $6.80 and $5.20. Ruhlmann paid $4.80 and $4.60, and De Roche's show price was $10.20. A $2 exacta on the first two finishers was worth $74.80 and a $3 triple on the first three horses paid $1,965.60.
Lukas, who moved from the quarter-horse business to thoroughbreds in 1978, passed Charlie Whittingham in 1988 to become No. 1 on the career purse list. Lukas needed about $300,000 to hit the $100-million mark Saturday, and Criminal Type's victory was worth $600,000. The Lukas organization has led the country in purses for seven consecutive years, setting the one-year record in 1988 with $17.8 million.
After the Special, Lukas explained how Santos, one of his regular jockeys, wound up on Criminal Type.
When Lukas spoke with Angel Cordero's agent, Drew Mollica, about riding the horse Saturday, Mollica said that his jockey had a conflict in New York. Lukas then called another agent, Frank Sanabria, and signed Santos.
An hour later, Mollica called Lukas and said he had been looking at the wrong date, that Cordero would be available on Criminal Type.
"I've already given the call to Santos," Lukas told Mollica. "If you can get him and his agent to back off, you can have the mount."
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