After La Canada Victory, the Word Is Out: Lady’s Secret Is on a Tear

Lady’s Secret is on another winning streak, and that means hard times for other members of the filly-mare division at Santa Anita. Because when Lady’s Secret goes on a tear, she practically forgets to stop.

Last year, Lady’s Secret started winning in late May at Belmont Park, and she didn’t quit until November, when a stablemate, Life’s Magic, beat her in the Breeders’ Cup at Aqueduct, ending an eight-stake winning streak.

In her first start this season at Santa Anita, Lady’s Secret was outgamed by Savannah Slew in the La Brea Stakes, in a stretch duel so exacting that it sent the winner to the farm with a leg injury.

But Lady’s Secret rebounded from that half-length loss to take the El Encino on Jan. 18 and then Sunday, despite high weight of 126 pounds, she won the $205,700 La Canada Stakes by a 1 lengths in front of a crowd of 43,665. If last year is any barometer, it’s two down and at least six to go for this smallish gray daughter of Secretariat.

Lady’s Secret won her 14th career stakes and swelled her earnings to almost $1.3 million by picking up Sunday’s $120,200 purse.

Even had Videogenic run, Lady’s Secret would have been an odds-on choice, but with the horse from Florida staying in the barn, Gene and Joyce Klein’s filly paid $3, $2.20 and $2.20. Lady’s Secret ran the 1 1/8 miles in 1:49 4/5 to hold off Shywing, who was gaining steadily in the final yards. Wayne Lukas, Lady’s Secret’s trainer, also grabbed third with North Sider, who finished four lengths behind Shywing.

Shywing, the second betting choice, paid $2.60 and $2.40 and North Sider returned $2.40.

Videogenic, flown to California after winning the Orchid Handicap at Gulfstream Park a week ago, was scratched early Sunday morning by trainer Gasper Moschera. According to the Santa Anita racing office, Moschera wasn’t comfortable with his filly carrying 126 pounds, the same as Lady’s Secret, and prefers to wait for the Feb. 23 Santa Margarita Handicap, when the weights should be more favorable.

A trainer not as certain about the Santa Margarita is Jerry Fanning, whose Shywing ran second to Lady’s Secret for the second straight time.

“Maybe it’ll be the Santa Margarita next,” Fanning said. “Lady’s Secret is tough. She just wins. Laffit (Pincay) told me that he thought he had the winner at the end, but Lady’s Secret just kept running. Our filly can’t seem to outrun her.”

Lady’s Secret’s 126-pound assignment was the most a La Canada winner had carried since Chris Evert won the race with 128 pounds in 1975, the first year for the stake for 4-year-olds. Weight has been too much for champion fillies in this race before, Life’s Magic running third under 126 last year and It’s in the Air finishing third with 125 in 1980.

“I worry about weight because she’s such a small filly,” Lukas said of Lady’s Secret. “I’d guess that she’s just over 15 hands (five feet) and doesn’t weigh more than 950 pounds.

“I don’t know if that other filly would have caught her even if she had more ground. When another horse runs up to this filly, she gets competitive.”

Lukas and the Kleins had just returned from Miami Beach, Fla., where they received a batch of trophies for last year--best trainer, best owners and divisional championships for Family Style and Life’s Magic. But Lady’s Secret didn’t win the 3-year-old title--she was outvoted by Mom’s Command, mainly because she was beaten by Life’s Magic in the Breeders’ Cup. In fact, a ninth straight win by Lady’s Secret would have rocketed her right into horse-of-the-year contention, for a title that the voters reluctantly gave to Spend a Buck with only a 37% plurality.

Lukas saw the rerun of Life’s Magic’s win over Lady’s Secret at the dinner in Florida. “I don’t have any second thoughts about that race,” he said. “Nobody was going to beat Life’s Magic that day. She was right on the right day.

“Lady’s Secret had won those eight straight, and nobody wins them all. I was actually more surprised that she lost that first race here than the fact that she lost in New York.”

On Sunday, Chris McCarron, winning his eighth stakes of the season, had Lady’s Secret on the lead almost from the start, with Time for a Slam alongside. On the far turn, however, Lady’s Secret exploded into the clear, taking about a two-length lead and defying the rest of the six-horse lineup to catch her.

After the race, McCarron told Lukas that Lady’s Secret “squirted on her own” at the three-eighths pole.

That was an apt word choice by the jockey, because compared to other horses, Lady’s Secret is a squirt. A squirt who looks as though she’s ready to keep on winning and winning, just like last year.

Horse Racing Notes With jockey Jorge Velasquez having taken calls on Gate Dancer for both the San Antonio Handicap next Sunday and the Santa Anita Handicap on March 2, it means that Proud Truth won’t be coming back from Florida for the Big ‘Cap. Velasquez is the only jockey who’s ever ridden Proud Truth. It was already probable that Proud Truth wouldn’t return after his fifth-place finishes in the San Fernando and the Strub. There are no $1 million purses like the Big ‘Cap’s in Florida, but Proud Truth figures to like the tracks back there better than he did Santa Anita. He was three for three last year at Gulfstream Park. . . . Gate Dancer, who’ll make his 1986 debut in the San Antonio, worked a mile in 1:39 1/5 Sunday morning. His exercise rider was Kenny Black, who after drug and weight problems is trying to make a comeback as a jockey if he can get his weight down. . . . Greinton, second to Lord at War in last year’s Big ‘Cap and also scheduled to run in the San Antonio, worked a mile in 1:37 between races Sunday. . . . Santa Anita’s racing department has given no thought to racing secretary Tom Robbins disqualifying himself from participating in assigning weights for the Big ‘Cap if Nostalgia’s Star runs. Nostalgia’s Star, winner of the Strub, is owned in part by Robbins’ mother and is trained by his brother. “We’ll outvote him,” Frank (Jimmy) Kilroe said of Robbins. The weights for major stakes are usually determined by Kilroe, who is vice president for racing, Robbins and assistant racing secretaries George Taniguchi and Tom Knust. . . . Connie Ring, who has bred and raced horses for almost 40 years, will sell all of her horses in three phases this year, starting with a sale of racing stock at Santa Anita on May 20. Racing in the colors of Ring’s Three Rings Ranch, Crystal Water won the Hollywood Derby in 1976 and the Californian and the Hollywood Gold Cup the next year. . . . Committed, purchased last year for a reported $2 million by Allen Paulson, is entered in Wednesday’s Monrovia Handicap. A standout sprinter in Europe last year, Committed has won one of three starts in the United States, finishing eighth in the Santa Monica Handicap in her last start. . . . Pat Valenzuela, second to Chris McCarron in the standings, had the flu Sunday and didn’t ride. . . . Eventually, Bedouin is going to have believers, but it’s slow. A week ago, the 5-year-old gray gelding won the ninth race at 14-1, completing a record $1.9 million Pick Nine ticket for Craig Phillips of Hacienda Heights. In Sunday’s ninth race, trainer John Buonaiuto, who claimed Bedouin for $10,000 two races ago, ran him for $35,000 and he won to pay $39.20.