Horse Racing / Bill Christine : Snow Chief May Not Race Sunday

After discouraging most trainers from considering the $250,000 El Camino Real Derby Sunday at Bay Meadows, Snow Chief himself may not run in the race.

Trainer Mel Stute, noting that it rained Wednesday in San Francisco, said that Snow Chief would be entered but would run only if the track is satisfactory.

For Stute, the track would not necessarily have to be fast, but it would have to be in better shape than it was when his Juliet’s Pride ran second to Bold T. Jay in a quagmire in the 1983 El Camino Real Stakes for 2-year-olds.

“I don’t care what’s on top, but if the track has a good bottom Sunday, we’ll run,” Stute said.

With wins in the Hollywood Futurity and the California Breeders’ Championship at Santa Anita in his last two starts, Snow Chief has become racing’s youngest millionaire, and he and Tasso are considered to be the West Coast’s early favorites for the Kentucky Derby.

Tasso, who won the Eclipse Award as the best 2-year-old colt, probably won’t make his 3-year-old debut until March.

Stute has planned three races--the El Camino Real Derby, the Florida Derby at Gulfstream Park March 1 and the Santa Anita Derby April 6--for Snow Chief before the Kentucky Derby May 3, and not running Sunday would disrupt the schedule.

“If we don’t run Sunday, the next possible race would be the San Rafael (at Santa Anita Feb. 22), but that comes too close to the Florida Derby,” Stute said. “So what I’ll probably do, in the event we scratch Sunday, is train the horse up to the Florida Derby.”

It’s been questioned why the Florida Derby is so vital on Snow Chief’s schedule. The race requires flying the colt to Florida, then back to California for the Santa Anita Derby before another flight to Kentucky.

The answer is money--Stute made it clear a while back that Snow Chief is being pointed for the richest races, and of the seven major preps for the Kentucky Derby, the three richest, at $500,000 apiece, are the Florida Derby, the Arkansas Derby at Oaklawn Park on April 19 and the Santa Anita Derby.

The Kentucky Derby itself is listed as only a $350,000 race, but because it costs each owner $20,200 to run, the purse has topped $500,000 in the last four years.

Even if Stute doesn’t run Snow Chief Sunday, he will still wind up with the favorite in the race, since Darby Fair is expected to compete. Darby Fair thrives on off tracks, winning the California Juvenile Stakes in the mud at Bay Meadows last November and then beating his stablemate, Snow Chief, in sloppy going in the Hoist the Flag Stakes at Hollywood Park about three weeks later. That loss is the only one Snow Chief has suffered in his last five starts.

While Mel Stute is busy at Bay Meadows Sunday, his son, Gary, will take his place at Santa Anita, saddling Right Con for the $500,000 Charles H. Strub Stakes.

Trainers of eight of the nine horses that finished behind Right Con in the San Fernando Stakes Jan. 19--the 4-year-old colt’s first win in 14 months-- will try again in the Strub. Only Floating Reserve appears to be skipping the Strub, with Nostalgia’s Star, Fast Account, First Norman, Proud Truth, Schiller, Will Dancer, Encolure and Lucky N Green expected to run.

They will be joined by a few others, including Roo Art, whose owner, Barbara Holleran, must pay a $10,000 supplementary fee in order to run.

Roo Art, winner of the Assault Handicap for his new trainer, Wayne Lukas, last Saturday at Aqueduct, is a $15,500 yearling purchase who broke his maiden while running for a $20,000 claiming price at Laurel in 1984.

A son of Buckaroo, who also sired 1985 Kentucky Derby winner Spend a Buck, Roo Art pushed his career earnings over the $200,000 mark with the win in the Assault.

Laffit Pincay is scheduled to ride Roo Art. Mel Stute said that Pat Valenzuela will ride Right Con. Rafael Meza, who rode Right Con to victory in the San Fernando, was among four jockeys injured in a spill two days later and still has a sore knee.

Speaking of that spill, no one identified with it more than Alfred Shelhamer, one of the Santa Anita stewards.

Shelhamer was a 27-year-old jockey at Santa Anita in 1945 when he went down, with four other riders, in a spill at the half-mile pole. The injuries Shelhamer suffered ended his riding career.

Racing Notes Badger Land, who won the Los Feliz Stakes at Santa Anita Jan. 4, is scheduled to run Sunday in the El Camino Real Derby at Bay Meadows. . . . Saturday’s Santa Maria Handicap at Santa Anita figures to include Dontstop Themusic, the Bruce Headley-trained entry of Johnica and Her Royalty, and Love Smitten. Dontstop Themusic, second to Life’s Magic in last year’s Eclipse Awards voting for older fillies and mares, carries top weight of 123 pounds, two more than Headley’s pair. . . . Three of the 45 horses that died in the Belmont Park fire belonged to Nelson Bunker Hunt. One of them, Hallouth, ran last in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Stakes last November. . . . Del Mar showed a profit of more than $2 million last year, based on its $1.9 million payment to the State of California for rent. Under the terms of its lease with the 22nd District Agricultural Assn., Del Mar must pay 75% of its profits to the state. . . . Santa Anita’s Pick Nine pool has reached $980,000. . . . Lewie Cenicola, who was John Henry’s exercise rider, is now training a couple of California-breds for his uncle. Cenicola continues to serve as an assistant to trainer Ron McAnally. . . . Ferdinand, who won Wednesday’s Santa Catalina Stakes, may drag trainer Charlie Whittingham some place he never likes to go--the Kentucky Derby. Whittingham likes to work slowly with 3-year-olds, but he also suspects that Ferdinand is a genuine 1-mile horse.