Horse Racing / Bill Christine : Trotter Is in Hot Water Because Win Won’t Get a Chance to Do So

Tommy Trotter, the director of racing at Arlington Park in suburban Chicago, was here for the Alabama Stakes and a racing conference last weekend, but he spent most of his time defending the selections his committee made for the fifth running of the Budweiser Arlington Million on Aug. 25.

Much of the criticism came from the owners of Win, a 5-year-old gelding who didn’t qualify for either the Million’s list of 14 invitees or the alternate list of 10 other horses.

Trotter returned to Chicago just in time. The Win people were upset before the running of Sunday’s Bernard Baruch Handicap, but when their horse won the stake, they turned livid.

Paul Cornman, one of Win’s owners, was particularly disturbed because his New York-bred was excluded from the Million and so many California horses were invited. There are five West Coast invitees--Both Ends Burning, Dahar, Greinton, Kings Island and Tsunami Slew--and four on the alternate list--Al Mamoon, Drumalis, The Noble Player and Fatih.

“They overrate the West Coast races,” Cornman said. “This race (the Baruch) would be a headliner out there with a $250,000 purse. Here it’s a $75,000-added race. They have inflated earnings in California because they race year round. Here the season is shorter. It starts in June and God forbid you get off on the wrong foot.”

Win’s win Sunday was his second straight in the Baruch. Last year, he also won the Tidal and Manhattan Handicaps at Belmont Park, earning $543,000. He is best known, however, for a second-place finish, only a neck behind John Henry, horse of the year, in the Turf Classic at Belmont in September.

This year, however, Win had done little before his start in the Baruch, and that was the rub as far as Trotter’s committee was concerned. Win didn’t make his first 1985 start until early June and he ran seventh, fourth and sixth in his first three races. Then he won an allowance race at Belmont that set him up for the Baruch. Sunday’s win boosted Win’s career earnings to more than $800,000.

“Sally Bailie (Win’s trainer and principal owner) took it (the Million exclusion) better than the rest of them,” Trotter said Wednesday by phone from a hotel next to Arlington. The track’s grandstand, clubhouse and offices were destroyed in a fire July 31 and crews are working around the clock to remove the rubble in time for a makeshift seating operation that will enable Arlington to run the Million and four other races Aug. 25.

The rest of Arlington’s season is being run at Hawthorne, a track in the Chicago suburb of Cicero.

“I told the Win people that if their horse had just placed in a stake, we probably would have invited him,” Trotter said. “But based on his record, we even had reason to believe that maybe the horse was hurt. Sally told me that he didn’t run until June because there was a dispute among the owners over the ownership of the horse.”

There’s a good chance that seven of the starters in the Million will be from California, the five invitees plus alternates Al Mamoon and Drumalis. The deadline is midnight tonight for owners to make a final eligibility payment of $5,000, and at least three of the European invitees have indicated to Trotter that they won’t run.

Although Abby Fuller is the fourth-leading rider at Boston’s Suffolk Downs and has gained national attention riding Mom’s Command, her father Peter’s stakes-winning 3-year-old filly, the 26-year-old jockey has no thoughts of moving to a larger track.

“At Suffolk, I ride four or five horses a day, and good ones, too,” Abby Fuller said. “If I went to tracks in New York or California, I’d be lucky to get one or two mounts a week.”

Prodded by the courts, racing started allowing women to ride in 1969. “That might seem like a long time ago, but when you think about it, compared to the number of years racing’s been around, it’s not that long,” Fuller said.

“A lot of trainers still have this notion that women aren’t strong enough to handle horses. Maybe we aren’t as strong as men, but I still think we get along with horses better than men and we’re capable of outsmarting men. What’s strength, even a man’s strength, when you’re up against something as big and strong as a horse?”

Mom’s Command was bred by Peter Fuller, through the mating of Top Command and Star Mommy.

Mom’s Command is named after Fuller’s wife Joan, as was Star Mommy. “And she is a star mommy,” Fuller said of Joan, who has given her husband eight children--Abby, six other daughters and one son.

Fuller says Mom’s Command is for sale and has put a $10 million price tag on the filly.

Unaware that Mom’s Command isn’t eligible for the Breeders’ Cup at Aqueduct on Nov. 2, owner Earl Scheib said he would like a rematch then between his Fran’s Valentine and Fuller’s filly. Their East-West showdown last Saturday in the Alabama Stakes here was a mismatch, Mom’s Command coasting to a four-length victory.

Fuller has repeatedly said that he won’t pay the $120,000 supplementary fee that’s needed for Mom’s Command to be eligible for the Breeders’ Cup.

“One of the things that hurt my filly in the Alabama was that she missed a workout because of rain,” Scheib said. Fran’s Valentine’s last work was seven days before the race.

Racing Notes The Noble Player, beaten by a nose Sunday by Pass the Line in the Arlington Handicap, will remain in Chicago, either to run in the Million Aug. 25 or the $100,000 Newmarket Stakes at Arlington Park the same day. . . . Allen Paulson, the Encino horse owner, was one of the big spenders at the Saratoga yearling auction last week. Paulson bought 25 horses for $7.16 million. Paulson sold his 71% interest in the Gulfstream Aerospace Corp. to the Chrysler Corp. in June for a reported $636.5 million. . . . Sabin, the filly who earned more than $1 million in her career, is in foal to Conquistador Cielo, horse of the year in 1982. . . . A field of eight is probable for Saturday’s Travers Stakes at Saratoga. Stephan’s Odyssey and Chief’s Crown are the standouts. Also entered are Skip Trial, Script Ohio, Attribute, Uptown Swell, Turkoman and Don’s Choice.