STRAIGHT FROM THE OWNER'S MOUTH; BRASH PARAGALLO TAKES LOW-KEY STANCE ON ARTAX.

Byline: Kevin Modesti Daily News Staff Writer

When Ernie Paragallo arrives from New York tonight to watch his 3-year-old colt Artax run Saturday in the Santa Anita Derby, his lip will be buttoned as tight as his raincoat.

``I've learned to keep my mouth shut,'' he said on the phone this week.

Paragallo is confident, and most handicappers think he should be.

But he absorbed a hard lesson two years ago, when Paragallo owned Kentucky Derby favorite Unbridled's Song and predicted a Triple Crown sweep, offending a lot of people and, it seemed, upsetting the colt's karma.

According to the Derby's modern mythology, the race usually is won not by the fastest horse but by the most-deserving owner. The winner's garland of roses has become a sort of lifetime achievement award, the trophy for a long history of support for the sport. Owners Frances Genter (Unbridled), Cal Partee (Lil E. Tee), Paul Mellon (Sea Hero) and Bob and Beverly Lewis (Silver Charm) have fit the profile in the '90s.

Paragallo didn't, and not only because he was too young (37).

He would show up at the Churchill Downs barns in a leather jacket and a two-day growth of beard, hardly the L.L. Bean look favored by the local gentry. He also came off as a know-it-all, meddling with trainer Jim Ryerson.

After winning the Breeders' Cup Juvenile, Florida Derby and Blue Grass Stakes, Unbridled's Song pushed a fast pace in Kentucky but finished fifth, running with a protective bar shoe on his injured left hoof. The mythologists believed Paragallo got his comeuppance.

``I wasn't from the normal mold of owners, and I guess people just jumped on that,'' he said.

But he admits he made himself a target.

He first predicted a Triple Crown for Unbridled's Song more than a year before the races. Paragallo had consigned the colt to the Barretts 2-year-olds auction in Pomona and he was bought for $1.2 million. But new owner Hirishi Fugita's veterinarians found evidence of an ankle chip and voided the purchase.

``I had the misfortune of making the statement to the guy who returned him that he was going to be sorry for that because the horse was going to win the Breeders' Cup and the Triple Crown,'' Paragallo said. ``I happened to repeat that statement after he won the Breeders' Cup. So from then on it was written that I had predicted he was going to win the Triple Crown.''

Which he had. Yet Paragallo, an investment banker and computer software executive from Long Island, was shocked when he, not the horse, became the focus of newspaper coverage.

He denies the charge that he, not the colt's handlers, called the shots in the difficult week before the Derby. If he made the decisions, Paragallo said, Unbridled's Song would have been scratched. But Ryerson and racing manager Buzz Chace thought the foot was sound enough to race.

After that, Unbridled's Song suffered through a series of infirmities and layoffs - and a trainer switch to Nick Zito - and never won another major race. Paragallo still believes he was the most talented of that generation of 3-year-olds, which included Derby winner Grindstone, Preakness winner Louis Quatorze, Belmont winner Editor's Note and Skip Away, the champion handicap runner of 1997.

As for Artax: Paragallo is holding his tongue about this one.

``He's been low-key,'' said Randy Bradshaw, who trains Artax. ``He's never bothered me or told me what he wants to do.

``Maybe,'' Bradshaw said, acknowledging Paragallo's reputation, ``that'll change in Kentucky.''

Artax, a Kentucky-bred from the first crop of offspring of '91 Hollywood Gold Cup winner Marquetry, stayed in Southern California with Bradshaw after being withdrawn from the '96 Barretts auction, where Paragallo thought his horses were being undervalued.

Paragallo said he chose Bradshaw in part because ``we wanted someone who wasn't as big-mouthed as I was.''

A winner of three of six starts, Artax is one victory from going to Churchill as the leading western Derby hope. Since finishing second in the Hollywood Futurity to Real Quiet, Artax and jockey Chris McCarron have won the Santa Catalina by 5-1/2 lengths over Souvenir Copy and the San Felipe by a head over Real Quiet.

Paragallo had business elsewhere and missed both recent victories. That's one way of keeping quiet.

``Artax, right now, he's a great horse, but he has to prove a little more to me before he gets put in the class of Unbridled's Song,'' Paragallo said. ``From day one, Unbridled's Song was a superhorse. Artax may be.

``I'm not saying Artax won't rise to that level. He has a heart as big as I've ever seen. But he's a Baby Huey type. He's just growing into what he can be. Unbridled's Song was at that point when he was 2.''

This time, Paragallo figures a little humility can go a long way. A mile and an eighth on Saturday, a mile and a quarter on May 2.

``I don't care if he's the best horse going to the Kentucky Derby,'' he said of Artax, ``I just want him to be the luckiest.''

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PHOTO Ernie Paragallo, whose Artax will run in Saturday's Santa Anita Derby, rubbed people the wrong way with his predictions two years ago.

Benoit Photo