Horse Racing / Bill Christine : Steinbrenner Brings Back Fulton as Trainer

Trainer John Fulton has been standing in the winner’s circle lately, posing for pictures with horses owned by George Steinbrenner.

Last Sunday at Hollywood Park, Fulton saddled Sapient, and Sapient won while running for a $32,000 claiming price for his first win this year.

Earlier this month, in an allowance race for 2-year-old fillies, another Steinbrenner horse, Al’s Helen, won under Fulton.

Al’s Helen is one of the reasons Steinbrenner recently moved his horses from Wayne Lukas’ barn back to Fulton, who had trained on the West Coast for the owner of the New York Yankees for several years. Fulton won the Hollywood Derby in 1977 with the Steinbrenner-owned Steve’s Friend.

Last February, however, Steinbrenner took away Image of Greatness, a promising Secretariat colt, from Fulton, sending the 3-year-old to Lukas, and other horses followed. Fulton said that Spendthrift Farm, which will have a breeding interest in Image of Greatness, had something to do with the change.

Now Steinbrenner is back with Fulton.

The main problem between Steinbrenner and Lukas was that while Lukas was rolling up a record $11 million in purses this year, he was primarily doing it with owners other than Steinbrenner.

A month or so ago, Steinbrenner reportedly called Lukas with a couple of complaints. One was that Lukas would sometimes run his horses as an entry with other owners’ horses. Steinbrenner wanted to be No. 1, not just 1A, in the program.

Steinbrenner also told Lukas that he wanted Al’s Helen to be the top 2-year-old filly in the trainer’s barn. Since Al’s Helen hasn’t won a stakes race this year, and since Lukas also trains Family Style, Twilight Ridge and Arewehavingfunyet, it would be difficult for Steinbrenner’s filly to be No. 4, let alone No. 1. Regarding 1 and 1A, Lukas explained to Steinbrenner that it’s sometimes impossible for him to avoid running two-horse horse entries in stakes, because he trains so many horses for so many different owners.

“Let’s sleep on this and talk tomorrow,” Steinbrenner finally told Lukas.

“No,” Lukas said, “I’d just as soon settle this now. Look, George, we’ve been friends, why don’t we solve this by doing something that will be better for you in the long run. Give the horses to another trainer. That should make you happier.”

Steinbrenner is as involved with his horses as he is with the Yankees. He bought into Eternal Prince shortly before the colt won the Wood Memorial this year, then later was critical of his majority partners and trainer for running the horse in the Belmont Stakes and at Saratoga.

Lukas says he and Steinbrenner are still friends. As for John Fulton, he’s laughing off the cracks that he’s become the Billy Martin of Steinbrenner’s horse trainers.

An attorney for the owners of Rise N High, the stakes-winning quarter-horse gelding who was disqualified from a win at Los Alamitos because an illegal medication was found in his system, says that the horse will be re-tested by an independent laboratory.

Marlin Stapleton Jr., who represents Charles B. Albrecq and George S. Boskovich Jr. of Newhall, said that while the horse is being re-tested, next Monday’s hearing in a Santa Ana court will probably be delayed.

Rise N High won the Inaugural Handicap at Los Alamitos on Nov. 5, then had the $18,575 purse taken away when a post-race test indicated that he raced with a stimulant. Albrecq and Boskovich obtained a court stay of a state ruling banning their horse, enabling Rise N High to run fifth in the $200,000 Champion of Champions at Los Alamitos on Dec. 14.

Larry Kleve, Rise N High’s trainer, may have his license revoked over the drugging incident, although Kleve says that he plans to appeal the charge.

The 45-year-old Kleve is one of seven trainers who have had horses turn up with 12 post-race positives at Los Alamitos this season.

In a brief interview, Kleve said that barn security at Los Alamitos is unsatisfactory. Kleve has had other horses test positive as far back as 1976 and left the training business for about three years, when he managed a farm in California and was in the paving business in Arizona.

Albrecq and Boskovich paid $6,500 for Rise N High, and he’s gone on to earn more than $500,000.

“I can’t understand all this,” Boskovich said. “Kleve was a good trainer. Four months ago, the horse was sick with stomach problems and Kleve got him well enough to start winning races again.”

Ogygian, undefeated in his only three starts as a 2-year-old, will miss the 1986 Triple Crown series.

Ogygian suffered a training accident at Tartan Farms in Ocala, Fla., last week and has undergone surgery for the removal of a bone chip from his right hind leg. He’s likely to be sidelined for four months.

After winning the Belmont Futurity by 9 1/2 lengths in September, Ogygian missed the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Stakes at Aqueduct in November because of a sore shin.

Jockey Jorge Velasquez won both stakes races at Aqueduct last weekend, giving him 56 for the year, breaking the record of 54 that Chris McCarron set last year.

Twelve of Velasquez’s wins were in major races, two more than Laffit Pincay this year. Charlie Whittingham saddled winners of 12 major races this year, compared with only one in 1984. Wayne Lukas had winners in 14 major races this year.

Although Creme Fraiche won four major races in ‘85--the Belmont, the Super Derby, the Jerome Handicap and the American Derby--he probably won’t even finish in the top three in the Eclipse Awards voting for 3-year-old colts and geldings. Spend a Buck, Proud Truth and Chief’s Crown are likely to finish ahead of him.

Snaafi Dancer, a son of Northern Dancer who was bought at Keeneland for $10.2 million as a yearling in 1983, has been retired to stud without running in a race.

Owned by Sheik Maktoum Al Maktoum of Dubai, Snaafi Dancer is still the second-most expensive yearling ever sold, behind the Nijinsky II colt who was auctioned for $13.1 million this year.

Horse Racing Notes Mr Dalrae, the 6-year-old pacer owned by Pico Rivera restaurateur Bill Smith, has been retired and will go to stud at Castleton Farm in Goshen, N.Y. Mr Dalrae earned more than $1.1 million in his career and in 1984 was voted the country’s best aged pacing male. . . . Jorge Velasquez won seven stakes with Lady’s Secret this year, but now that the filly is back on the West Coast, Chris McCarron will ride her Friday in the La Brea Stakes at Santa Anita. McCarron’s only previous trip on Lady’s Secret resulted in a win in the Moccasin Stakes at Hollywood Park in November of ’84. . . . Denny Crum, the University of Louisville basketball coach, owns a 2-year-old gelding who’s running at Latonia in Kentucky. . . . Alan Balch, a vice president at Santa Anita and associated with the track since 1971, plans to resign at the end of 1986. . . . Former jockey Bill Hartack, who has worked as a racing official in California in recent years, is now a steward at Tampa Bay Downs.