Rating the immortals

For the past three years I've had the privilege of voting for people and horses that are candidates for induction into the Hall of Fame in Saratoga Springs. Here are the candidates for this year, followed by how I voted and why. You're allowed to vote for only one in each category.

Male horse: Tiznow, Best Pal, Manila
Female horse: Inside Information, Open Mind, Silverbulletday, Sky Beauty
Jockey: Edgar Prado, Randy Romero, Alex Solis
Trainer: Carl Nafzger, Robert Wheeler

MALE HORSE:
Tiznow was an easy pick, because how can you leave out the only horse to win back-to-back Breeders' Cup Classics? Best Pal (17 stakes wins, earnings of more than $5.6 million) will get in another year, but not against Tiznow. Manila, a great grass horse in the mid- to late 1980s, ran only 18 times but won five Grade I stakes, including the Breeders' Cup Turf and the Arlington Million. He's third-best in this trio.

FEMALE HORSE:
Inside Information was another slam dunk, having never finished worse than third (14-2-1) in her career, and winning the 1995 Breeders' Cup Distaff in the Belmont mud by 13 1/2 lengths was a performance for the ages. Open Mind, the 1988 2-year-old filly champion, lost her last five races. Silverbulletday also slumped late in her career, losing six of her last seven. Belmont/Saratoga specialist Sky Beauty was 15-for-21 but finished up the track (5th, 9th) in the 1993 and '94 Distaffs.

JOCKEY:
Barbaro's runaway Derby is among Edgar Prado's more than 6,000 wins, and I'm sure he'll win this election in a landslide. I didn't vote for Prado, though he has great credentials, because I think Randy Romero was one of the most courageous and gifted riders I ever saw, as well as one of the unluckiest. Romero broke almost every bone in his body in a 27-year career that had tremendous highs and lows. He won 4,294 races and was the regular jockey for all-time greats Personal Ensign and the ill-fated Go for Wand, and he rode them after coming back from a sweat-box fire in which he nearly died from burns. He recently had a kidney removed and will have to continue dialysis for the rest of his life. Racing should salute him with a place in the Hall of Fame. As for Solis, I've always thought of him as a compiler of stats, a very good but not a great jockey. He might get in down the road, but not this time.

TRAINER:
Carl Nafzger, the former bull rider from Texas, is a quality over quantity guy. He'll never lead the nation in wins with his small stable, but give him an excellent horse and he'll never mess it up. Taking his second Derby last year with Street Sense, 17 years after he got the roses with Unbridled, earned him a plaque on Union Avenue up at the Spa.

Wheeler, who died at 72 in 1992, was an old-timer from Nebraska who probably never will make the Hall because he did most of his best work before 1980. Some of his best-known horses were Track Robbery, The Axe II and A Gleam.