'Preakness Top Thrill' By JOE HIRSCH The highlight was the Preakness. "You can't take anything away from the Belmont Stakes, " John W. Galbreath said over the phone from his home in Columbus, Ohio, recently. "Anytime you can win any one of the Triple Crown classics it's a big victory. But when Little Current got through that narrow opening at Pimlico and won the Preakness, it was a tremendous thrill for us. We were a little disappointed at his bad luck in the Kentucky Derby, and we had never won a Preakness before, so we were lust delighted. " The Preakness victory, by a convincing seven lengths, and Little Current's subsequent seven-length triumph in the Belmont Stakes, earned him honors as champion 3-year-old colt of 1974. A bone chip—in the ankle of his right foreleg-ended Little Current's racing career on August 31, with one- third of the season still ahead. But he had done enough to make the voters appreciate he was the best of his generation. He also convinced the breeders, and was quickly syndicated at $100, 000 per share. He makes his first season at Galbreath's Darby Dan Farm in Lexington, Ky., next spring. "I kept 10 shares in him and we are going to send our very best mares to him, " Galbreath said. "Some will be Ribot mares. Ribot, you know, was a little hot-blooded, while Little Current is the best-mannered horse I've ever owned. Perhaps some of his grand disposition will come out in his foals. It's so important for a classic horse to have a good disposition, because these races are over a distance, and a horse has to relax if he is going to stay. "That's the fun of racing for Mrs. Galbreath and myself, breeding for the classics. And that's why we sent Luiana to Sea-Bird. Luiana never raced, but she had that good blood. She was by an English classic winner, My Babu, out of Banquet Bell. Now Banquet Bell was the dam of Chateaugay, who won the 1963 Kentucky Derby for us, and she was also the dam of our champion filly, Primonetta. As for Sea-Bird, he won the Epsom Derby and Arc de Triomphe and was a top sire, too. I really regretted his loss. " Luiana's son—to the cover of Sea-Bird—had only a brief campaign at 2, but came to the fore last winter at Hialeah, where John Galbreath is chairman of the board. Under Angel Cordero Jr., Little Current finished furiously to win the nine-furlong Everglades Stakes and looked like a good thing in the Flamingo. But he ran into traffic problems, which were to plague him frequently. His late charge was impeded and he finished fourth. Prepping for the Derby in Keeneland's Blue Grass Stakes, Little Current threatened to win it all from the head of the stretch but hung just a trifle to finish fourth. Trainer Lou Rondinello, eager to have him at his peak for the Derby, had given him limited preparation for the Blue Grass. He knew the race would move his colt forward. It did. But as a come-from-behind horse in the largest Derby field (23) of all time, he had an impossible task. While Rondinello, felled by a gallstone attack, watched the telecast from a Louisville hospital bed, Little Current was stopped five times from the three-quarter pole to the wire. He was fifth, beaten about six lengths, after a most hazardous journey. "We thought he had a big chance to win it, " Galbreath recalled. "As a matter of fact, we felt the same way before the Derby victories of Chateaugay and Proud Clarion (1967) or we wouldn't have run. You don't want to run just to have a horse in the race. You run because you think you can win, and it was disap- pointing because we knew he was good. But we never lost faith in Little Current, and that Preakness confir- mation of our belief in him was mighty sweet. How he swept through that narrow hole!" It's all over for Little Current now, at least on the racetrack, but Luiana has a promising 2-year-old filly by Stage Door Johnny named Fair Renown, and a handsome yearling colt by Arts and Letters, as well as a weanling colt by His Majesty. The Galbreaths are bidding for more classic winners in the mold of Little Current, a champion whose glory was brief but bright. But for some untoward racing luck, he might have been a Triple Crown winner. That's the ultimate in classic breeding, and it has escaped them by inches on two occasions. They're willing to try again.