Santa Anita Handicap : This Time Around, Shoe Makes Change

The best time to determine whether Bill Shoemaker chose the right horse in today’s $500,000 Santa Anita Handicap will be about 5 o’clock this afternoon, when the 48th running of the race is history.

Either way, Mary Jones Bradley says she had no influence on Shoemaker riding Lord at War instead of Greinton in the 1-mile race. Shoemaker has been riding both horses, but for the Big ‘Cap he will be aboard Lord at War, while Chris McCarron will take Greinton, who is owned in part by Bradley.

Bradley, the shoe heiress from Santa Monica, took Shoemaker off her horse, Cougar II, for private reasons in the 1973 Hollywood Gold Cup. Shoemaker accepted the mount on Kennedy Road and won the race as Cougar II finished third.

Charlie Whittingham trained both Cougar II and Kennedy Road, and he is saddling three horses in today’s Big ‘Cap--Greinton, Lord at War and Hail Bold King.

There have been reports at Santa Anita that Bradley dictated that McCarron, the meet’s leading rider, would be Greinton’s rider instead of Shoemaker. Although Lord at War has won four straight stakes, Greinton lost by only a nose to Precisionist in last month’s Charles H. Strub Stakes.

And Precisionist, who swept the Strub series, would have been one of the favorites today, but a coughing spell took him out of the Big ‘Cap. McCarron became available to ride one of Whittingham’s horses when Precisionist was sidelined.

“I had no preference regarding who rides Greinton,” Bradley said. “In my opinion, it should be the trainer who chooses the jockey to ride a horse, and I think that’s what happened in this case.

“The trainer’s in the best position to judge which jockey fits which horse. I would have been happy with McCarron or Shoemaker. They’re both top jockeys, and they’re both currently riding well.

“The best horse will win the race. Talk to me Sunday night, and I’ll tell you whether Shoemaker or McCarron is on the right horse. Maybe neither one of them is. Maybe somebody like Gate Dancer will win the race.”

Speaking of Gate Dancer, trainer Jack Van Berg is confident that his 4-year-old colt will be better than the two thirds he has posted this year. Gate Dancer won the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico and the Super Derby at Louisiana Downs last year, but he has never won a race in California.

“This horse is good right now,” Van Berg said. “He’s had problems in both his starts this year. The first race (the San Fernanlo Stakes), he came close to clipping heels with another horse and broke stride, and in the Strub he had to swing outside in the stretch, and that cost him some ground.”

Gate Dancer finished less than a length behind Precisionist in the Strub.

Eight horses were entered in the Big ‘Cap, the smallest field since Spectacular Bid beat four other starters in ‘80, and only seven may start. Trainer Neil Drysdale said last week that his horse, Beldale Lear, would run “only if lightning strikes Charlie Whittingham’s barn.”

An interesting element is Life’s Magic, who is trying to become the first female to win the Big ‘Cap. Trainer Wayne Lukas has been saying all along that Life’s Magic “is a genuine mile-and-a-quarter horse,” but this is a tough spot, against males in only her second start of the year.

Shoemaker, 53, has won the Big ‘Cap a record 10 times. He first rode in the stake in 1951, and his first victory came with Rejected in ’54. Other Shoemaker wins in the race came aboard Poona, Round Table, Prove It, Lucky Debonair, Pretense, Ack Ack, Stardust Mel, Spectacular Bid and John Henry, who won on a disqualification in ’82 after Perrault finished first.

Will Lord at War be No. 11? “He’s tough, isn’t he?” Whittingham said. It was a rhetorical question. Four in a row, usually while running on the lead and fighting off the challengers, is answer enough.