Horse Racing : Veitch Joins Lukas in Criticizing Eclipse Voting

John Veitch, like Wayne Lukas, is another trainer who is disturbed by the Eclipse Awards voting for 1985.

Lukas thought his 3-year-old filly, Lady’s Secret, deserved the divisional championship, instead of Mom’s Command. Veitch, who trains Proud Truth, was surprised that Spend a Buck won the 3-year-old colt title and thought that if his horse couldn’t have won, even Chief’s Crown would have been more deserving than Spend a Buck.

Spend a Buck, winner of the Kentucky Derby, finished first in voting by all three Eclipse groups--the turf writers, the racing secretaries and the Daily Racing Form. Proud Truth was second and Chief’s Crown third.

“I was disappointed in the vote,” said Veitch, who will be at Santa Anita Sunday to saddle Proud Truth in the $150,000 San Fernando Stakes, his first 1986 start. “I would have been surprised if we had lost to Chief’s Crown, but I was shocked that we were beat out by Spend a Buck.”

In head-to-head competition, the voters had little to go on. The only race the three horses ran together was the Derby, with Spend a Buck the winner in an exceptional time, Chief’s Crown third and Proud Truth fifth.

After the Derby, Spend a Buck ran only three more times, all in New Jersey. He won the Jersey Derby and the Monmouth Handicap and finished second to Skip Trial, who had an 11-pound weight advantage, in the Haskell Handicap.

Proud Truth was undefeated in four New York races after the Derby, despite suffering a broken left leg while winning the Peter Pan at Belmont Park in late May. Returning to the races in October, Proud Truth won three times, climaxed by his victory in the $3-million Breeders’ Cup Classic at Aqueduct on Nov. 2.

Early in the year, Proud Truth won two stakes in Florida, among them the Florida Derby, and he ran second to Chief’s Crown in the Flamingo. Spend a Buck won two stakes in spectacular times at Garden State Park before the Kentucky Derby.

Spend a Buck finished the year with $3.5 million in purses, which set a record. A $2-million bonus for winning the Kentucky Derby and three Garden State races accounted for most of the total, and without the bonus, Proud Truth would have topped him, having earned $1.9 million.

“I didn’t think Spend a Buck would win the division because he stayed in New Jersey and never ran in New York, where he couldn’t use medication,” Veitch said. “By doing that, I really don’t think that he met the better horses.”

A bleeder, Spend a Buck raced legally with a diuretic in the Kentucky Derby and in New Jersey. New York doesn’t permit medication for racing.

“The Eclipse vote isn’t going to kill me,” Veitch said. “It’s just that I thought it would turn out differently.”

What might shock Veitch even more is if Spend a Buck is named Horse of the Year when the vote is announced early next month. Based on the divisional results, Spend a Buck seems assured of the overall championship.

Will Dancer appears to be the only starter in the San Fernando for trainer Charlie Whittingham, who earlier had indicated that Banner Bob would run.

With Banner Bob out, no horse will be able to sweep the Strub Series this year, since Banner Bob won the first leg, the Malibu, Dec. 26. Last year, Precisionist became only the fifth horse to sweep the Malibu, the San Fernando and the Charles H. Strub Stakes.

One of the reasons Tommy Trotter left Arlington Park to become director of racing at Hollywood Park is that the future of the Chicago area track is in doubt. The stands at Arlington were destroyed last summer in a fire.

Trotter had just bought a house in suburban Chicago and was scheduled to move in two weeks after the fire. Arlington was still able to hold the Budweiser-Arlington Million three weeks after the fire, erecting tents and bleachers, which gave the event a county fair atmosphere.

But Arlington’s rebuilding plans are indefinite and the track has several tentative dates for this year’s Million.

Trotter worked under Marje Everett, Hollywood’s chief executive officer, when she and her father, Ben Lindheimer, ran Arlington and Washington Park, another Chicago area track.

Trotter, who will continue to work for Gulfstream Park in addition to Hollywood, is known as a man who’s willing to back up his opinions. He left the New York tracks when the administration continued to interfere in the operation of the racing department. And at Churchill Downs in 1974, Trotter said he would quit rather than arbitrate which horses would start in the Kentucky Derby.

That was the 100th Derby, and when 23 horses entered, the Kentucky State Racing Commission wanted Trotter to reduce the field. Trotter refused, all 23 horses ran, and Churchill Downs later introduced rules that restricted the field to 20 starters, based on earnings.

“I couldn’t have won if I had tackled that one,” Trotter said of the ’74 Derby. “How would you have liked to have gone down in history as the guy who banned a horse from the Derby, then had the horse go on to win the Preakness or the Belmont?”

When Gerry Lawrence, the general manager of Churchill Downs, was at Santa Anita recently to solicit nominations for this year’s Triple Crown races, trainer Wayne Lukas told him that he was six years too late.

“If you had been here with this rule in 1980, I wouldn’t have missed with Codex,” Lukas said.

This year, for the first time, trainers must nominate horses for all three Triple Crown races--the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness and the Belmont. That cost $600 by the deadline Wednesday, with the fee for the three races going to $3,000 by the final deadline March 17.

No supplementary nominations are permitted for any of the three races. In 1980, only the Derby had a rule against supplementaries, and Lukas neglected to nominate Codex, while making him eligible for the Preakness and Belmont.

Codex won the Santa Anita and Hollywood derbies, but was forced to sit out the Kentucky Derby. Then he went on to win the Preakness.

Racing Notes

Fact Finder, who won the San Gorgonio Handicap last year, will try to repeat in the stake Monday. Not expected to run is Estrapade, also from trainer Charlie Whittingham’s overflowing barn of standouts. . . . Whittingham, talking about trying to catch the undefeated Phone Trick with Temerity Prince in the San Carlos Handicap last Saturday: “My horse would have needed oxygen to beat the winner.” . . . Phone Trick will be rested for four or five weeks, says trainer Dick Mandella. . . . Son of Raja, a 6-year-old $25,000 claimer who won last Saturday’s ninth race at Santa Anita, had won only once before in a 50-race career. The victory was the first on the dirt for Son of Raja, who ran in Europe until a month ago. His Santa Anita purse of $10,450 almost matched his previous career earnings of $12,217. . . . Wednesday’s scratch of Dumdedumdedum in the Santa Monica Handicap was the idea of the horse’s trainer, not track announcer Trevor Denman.