By Harry King

LITTLE ROCK — New to the thoroughbred business, John Ed Anthony was introduced to the chairman of Churchill Downs, a crusty Kentuckian named Warner L. Jones.

John Ed, Jones said to the Arkansas lumberman, “What’s your goal in racing?”

Young and cocky, Anthony replied, “Win the Kentucky Derby.”

John Ed, Jones said, “You’ve got to be might lucky to win the Kentucky Derby.”

Forty years later, that truth gnaws at Anthony. Frustrating is the umbrella of his Derby experiences.

Some of his Derby runners lost in peculiar ways; other Loblolly Stable 3-year-olds missed the race for one reason or another. To make it worse, every horse he ran in the Derby was legitimate — a Grade I winner before or after the Derby — and those that didn’t make the race went on to achieve great things.

“I’ve never been in without having a genuine bullet to shoot,” he said. Not all horsemen can say the same thing.

Maybe it’s the months of preparation and two minutes of participation, or the fact that there is no next year for any of the horses, but the Kentucky Derby is a unique event. It might have been trainer Jack Van Berg who said winning the Derby is like “catching lightning in a bottle.”

Consider these Anthony disappointments on the first Saturday in May:

— 1984: Vanlandingham fractured a small bone in the Derby, but recovered to be champion older horse in 1985. Sixth in the Derby, stablemate Pine Circle was second in the Belmont and the Travers.

— 1987: Demons Begone inexplicably bled profusely and was pulled up, the only Derby favorite who failed to finish the race.

— 1991: Lost Mountain got a horrible ride from Herb McCauley who listened to his agent and moved the horse way too soon.

— 1992: Pine Bluff beat Lil E. Tee in three of their four meetings, but Lil E. Tee won the Derby and Pine Bluff was fifth.

— 1993: Three-year-old champion Prairie Bayou beat Sea Hero two of three, but was second to Sea Hero in the Derby.

Those bullet items cover only the on-track consternation:

—Cox’s Ridge, second to Seattle Slew in the Eclipse Award voting, missed the Triple Crown because of a chip in his knee.

—Temperence Hill, the Belmont winner and 3-year-old champion of 1980, was not nominated for the Derby. When the nominations closed in January, Temperence Hill was still a maiden. In those days, there were no supplemental nominations.

There is also Marked Tree, one of Anthony’s trio of talented 3-year-olds in 1993. Leading up to the Derby, they were separated — Prairie Bayou in Kentucky, Dalhart in Arkansas, and Marked Tree in Oklahoma where he swept the three prep races.

Trainer Tom Bohannan wanted to go from Remington Park to the Derby, but despite winning races with purses of $50,000, $100,000, and $300,000, Marked Tree had no graded money. The options were discussed at length and Anthony decided Marked Tree would ship to New York to earn graded money and guarantee a spot in the Derby field.

Marked Tree ran third in the Wood Memorial and was never the same. “The biggest mistake I ever made, that’s one of them,” Anthony said.

The Kentucky Derby is Saturday and Anthony’s Shortleaf Stable will not be represented.

“I’m still working at it, but I’m running out of steam,” he said. “I probably have had my shots and missed.”

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Harry King is sports columnist for Stephens Media’s Arkansas News Bureau. His e-mail address is hking@arkansasnews.com.