Del Mar Futurity : Arewehavingfunyet Likely Favorite

If the favorite wins today’s running of the $150,000 Del Mar Futurity, the outcome will do little to help identify the country’s best 2-year-old colt.

That’s because the likely favorite in the one-mile race is a filly--Arewehavingfunyet, who will attempt to give trainer Wayne Lukas his third straight win in the Futurity. Lukas won with another filly, Althea, in 1983, and repeated with a colt, Saratoga Six, last year.

The 2-year-old colt division is so unclear that the leader pro tem may be an ex-colt. Hilco Scamper, the Washington-bred gelding who had his winning streak snapped at five races in the Hopeful Stakes at Saratoga, is still listed as the 10-1 favorite by Las Vegas handicapper Pat Rogerson for the $1 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, the Nov. 2 race at Aqueduct for 2-year-old colts and geldings. Rogerson is making a line on all seven of the Breeders’ Cup races for the Union Plaza Hotel.

After Hilco Scamper, Rogerson has three Eastern horses--Papal Power, Sovereign Don and Ogygian--listed at 12-1. Arewehavingfunyet isn’t even considered the leader in the 2-year-old filly division, Rogerson rates her at 10-1 behind another of Lukas’ horses, Twilight Ridge, who is 8-1.

Other than the filly, the lowest Breeders’ Cup odds for a starter in today’s Futurity are the 20-1 for Bolger’s Magic, an undefeated gelding who won his third straight with a 3 1/2-length victory in the De Anza Stakes here Aug. 14.

Swear would have been the odds-on favorite in the Futurity, but he suffered a bruised cartilage while winning the Balboa Stakes Aug. 28 and might not run again this year.

Bright Tom, who finished second in the Balboa, 6 1/2 lengths back, is in today’s six-horse field, along with Badger Land, Snow Chief and Tasso.

Badger Land, still another promising Lukas 2-year-old, has made only two starts, winning against maidens at Belmont Park in July and running fifth at Saratoga last month. Badger Land is a son of the late Codex, with whom Lukas won the Santa Anita and Hollywood derbies and the Preakness in 1980.

Snow Chief won the Rancho Santa Fe Stakes a week ago. Tasso, who has no stakes experience, is from the first crop of Fappiano, a major New York stakes winner who is a son of Mr. Prospector.

It cost Tasso’s owners a supplementary fee of $10,000 to run in the Futurity, but trainer Neil Drysdale figured the gamble was worthwhile after his colt won a mile allowance race at Del Mar Aug. 17 in 1:36 3/5. That was only three-fifths of a second slower than Arewehavingfunyet’s winning time in the Del Mar Debutante Sept. 1. Saratoga Six’s win in last year’s Futurity was also in 1:36.

Arewehavingfunyet and Snow Chief are also $10,000 supplementary starters. Winners in recent years made names for themselves later--Althea won the 2-year-old filly championship, Roving Boy was the top colt in ’82 and Gato Del Sol, who won the Futurity in ‘81, won the Kentucky Derby the following year.

Snow Chief will be ridden by Alex Solis, who’s given solace to the longshot players at the Del Mar meeting. Solis, a former standout in Florida, has ridden 21 winners here and the win payoffs for a $2 bet have averaged more than $26. Solis has won with horses that have paid $114, $76.20 and $53.40. As far as the odds are concerned, Snow Chief is Solis’ kind of horse.

Horse Racing Notes Louisiana Slew, the $2.9 million yearling who won impressively at Del Mar in his first start Sept. 1, is scheduled to run Thursday in the MidPeninsula Stakes at Bay Meadows, with Pat Valenzuela riding. . . . In the aftermath of the Aug. 23 federal raid on illegal backstretch employees, 21 stable hands have been suspended by Del Mar stewards for falsifying their applications--saying they were United States citizens--for state licenses. . .