Fact Finder Upsets Favored Estrapade in Matriarch Stakes

Trainer Charlie Whittingham saddled the winner of Sunday’s $200,000 Matriarch Stakes at Hollywood Park.

A lot of people told Whittingham that he was going to do that. But the mare they had in mind was Estrapade. Instead, Whittingham won the Matriarch with Fact Finder, his other starter in the race, while Estrapade, the 3-5 favorite, finished fourth and cost herself the outside chance she had to win the divisional championship.

Now the Eclipse Award for best female on grass is a cinch for Pebbles, the English-bred filly who made only one American start, but beat males in the Breeders’ Cup Turf Stakes three weeks ago.

Fact Finder was a surprise to most of the bettors in the crowd of 27,983 on a rainy, raw day, being sent off at 17-1, but Whittingham sensed that Nelson Bunker Hunt’s 6-year-old was capable of an upset.

“Estrapade only beat her (by) less than two lengths last time (in the Yellow Ribbon Invitational at Santa Anita),” Whittingham said. “The pace was fast today and that helped her. As for Estrapade, she still ran a hell of a race. They all get beat, and she got beat by a mare who had won more than $700,000 in her career.”

Estrapade, second behind Capricorn Belle going down the backstretch, got the lead between horses at the top of the stretch, with Possible Mate on the rail and Tamarinda on the other side. But it was Fact Finder, who started out last in the field of 10 in the 1 1/8-mile race, who closed fastest of all in the middle of the 1,308-foot stretch and she nailed Tamarinda by a length at the wire. Tamarinda held the second spot by a nose over Possible Mate and it was three-fourths of a length farther back to Estrapade.

Fact Finder, timed in 1:48 1/5 on a damp but firm turf course, earned $137,000 and paid $37.20, $16.80 and $12.60. Tamarinda paid $15 and $12 and Possible Mate’s show price was $8.

Fact Finder, winning only 2 of 10 starts this year, had run unsuccessfully six times since taking the Santa Barbara Handicap at Santa Anita in April. Twice she has been beaten by Estrapade, running fourth in the Yellow Ribbon and finishing second, six lengths back, in the Santa Ana Handicap in March.

Part of Fact Finder’s problem had been a disastrous two-race trip to New York this fall, when she ran last and seventh in two stakes. Whittingham said that she is a bleeder and, because of New York’s no-medication rules, she bled in both of those races.

Fact Finder, a Florida-bred daughter of Staff Writer and Madame Defage, had been sold twice at auction, for $9,200 and $13,000, before Hunt bought her privately in the summer of ’83 for an undisclosed sum. At the time, she had earned less than $100,000.

Sandy Hawley was riding Fact Finder for the first time since they finished sixth in the Palomar Handicap at Del Mar in August. When the mare went East, Whittingham elected to use New York riders, and Pat Valenzuela had ridden her in the Yellow Ribbon.

“I don’t know why I lost the mount, you’d have to ask Mr. Whittingham,” Hawley said. The answer might have been in the cold figures. It has not been a bullish year for the four-time national champion. Hawley has fallen out of the top 20 in the national purse standings, he was not among the top 10 riders at the recently completed Oak Tree meeting and going into the Matriarch he had ridden only one winner out of 27 mounts at Hollywood this season.

“I’ve never been in a slump like this before,” Hawley said. “It was good to come out of it in a race like this. You’ve just got to hope that the Man upstairs is going to help you and today He helped me out.”

Hawley started to move Fact Finder into position at the half-mile pole. “We were just creeping then,” he said. “At the quarter pole, she really accelerated, and then when I got into her, she just took off. I knew she could kick in at the end and the long stretch figured to help her. I didn’t know we were going to win, though, until the last four or five jumps. We were lucky; usually in a big field, you’re going to get shut off when you’re that far back early.”

Estrapade, bred by Hunt, was making her first start since Allen Paulson had bought her for $4.5 million at auction in Kentucky a couple of weeks ago. Hunt, who was a minority owner along with Paulson before the sale, was the underbidder at the auction.

Estrapade had won the Yellow Ribbon, been rushed to Kentucky the same night for the sale and then returned again. Bill Shoemaker, who rode her Sunday, felt that maybe the travel might have been a factor.

“She didn’t have the punch in the stretch like she usually does,” Shoemaker said. “Going back and forth, maybe it took something out of her. She had no problems in the race. There was only one thing--when that New York horse (Possible Mate) came up on the inside, I might have moved a little quicker than I normally do.”

In analyzing the race, Whittingham also alluded to Estrapade’s Kentucky trip as a factor. But the trainer’s disappointment wasn’t great. After all, now he’s got two mares that are knocking at the door as $1-million earners.

Horse Racing Notes

In another stake on Sunday’s card, the Irish-bred Sharranpour won the Perrault by 2 3/4 lengths over Long Mick. Chris McCarron rode the winner, who had won three stakes in the East this year but finished last in the Breeders’ Cup Turf Stakes in his most recent start. . . . Family Style, Gene Klein’s 2-year-old filly who has won three stakes this year, finished second for the fourth time when she was nipped at the wire by I’m Sweets in the Demoiselle Stakes Sunday at Aqueduct. . . . Thanks to jet travel and the international dateline, Jean-Luc Samyn was able to finish third Sunday aboard Possible Mate in the Matriarch after riding Nassipour to a sixth-place finish in the Japan Cup in Tokyo earlier on the same day. The Japan Cup was run at approximately midnight, L.A. time. Samyn said he slept about six hours during the 10 1/2-hour nonstop flight from Tokyo to LAX, landing here shortly after noon. “I knew I’d have a rider who was ready,” said P.G. Johnson, who trains Possible Mate. “Jean-Luc is a great sleeper. And he was either going to be up from winning in Tokyo or hungry to win here if he lost there.” . . . Symboli Rudolf and Rocky Tiger, both Japanese horses, ran 1-2 in the Japan Cup. Alydar’s Best, now under the care of California trainer John Gosden, finished fourth.