Talakeno Is Fastest in Very Slow San Luis Obispo Handicap

The way things are going, they may soon be renaming the San Luis Obispo Handicap the Laz Barrera Handicap.

The 61-year-old trainer sent the winner to post for the third straight year Monday afternoon when Talakeno, ridden by Patrick Valenzuela, captured the $164,250 turf race in front of a crowd of 34,756 at rain-drenched Santa Anita.

It was the first stakes win of the meeting for both trainer and jockey. Barrera won the race with Western last year and with Sir Pele in 1984.

Talakeno, sent off as the 9-2 second choice, covered the 1 1/2 miles in 2:33 1/5, more than 10 seconds slower than the course record. The turf, which was rated soft, had a lot to do with that.

“It was like running in quicksand,” said jockey Gary Stevens, who finished third aboard favored Strawberry Road. “That’s how much water that turf course has taken.”

The surface didn’t appear to bother Talakeno in the slightest. He was off the pace for the majority of the race, then took the lead with about three furlongs to go and won going away.

“The turf is really soft and he likes it that way,” Valenzuela said of the brown 6-year-old owned by Stephen P. and Gary L. Wolfson of Ocala, Fla. “He runs his best on soft turf. Where the other horses can’t handle it, he can.”

Talakeno, who beat the Irish-bred Foscarini by three lengths, with the Australian-bred Strawberry Road another 2 1/2 lengths back, paid $10.80, $6.00 and $3.40. Foscarini, ridden by Eric Saint-Martin, paid $11.80 and $5.00, and Strawberry Road paid $3.00.

The victory was worth $123,750 to the winning owners, including a $27,000 Breeders’ Cup Premium Award. It was worth a lot more to Barrera, who has been going through a dry spell in the winter meeting.

“He’s a good horse on soft turf,” Barrera said of Talakeno, who won the 1-mile H.P. Russell Handicap over soft going during Santa Anita’s Oak Tree meeting and was a close second at Belmont Park in July in the 1 1/2-mile Sword Dancer Handicap, also run on a soft course.

“When the track is deep, and they’re going a mile and a half, horses get tired,” Barrera said. “My horse wasn’t tired today because he was on the pace all the way.”

Two others in the 12-horse field who had been expected to do well failed to do so. The Irish-bred Nasib made the pace for the first mile or so, then faded and finished next-to-last. Truculent, meanwhile, never was a factor.

Barrera said Talakeno’s next start probably will come March 29 in the San Luis Rey Stakes.

Horse Racing Notes John Gosden, who trains San Antonio Handicap winner Hatim, has received permission from owner Prince Khalid Abdullah of Saudi Arabia to supplement the 5-year-old into the March 2 Santa Anita Handicap at a cost of $25,000. Hatim originally had been nominated for the Big ‘Cap but became ineligible when no sustaining fee payment was made. . . . Pancho Villa, who finished second to Halo Folks in Saturday’s Sierra Madre Handicap, has been retired to stud. The 4-year-old son of Secretariat-Crimson Saint came up lame after the race, having fractured a right-front cannon bone, according to trainer Wayne Lukas. Syndicated for $6 million, Pancho Villa will stand at stud at Gainesway Farm in Kentucky. . . . Trainer Mel Stute said that highly regarded Snow Chief will be flown to Miami next Monday to begin preparing for the March 1 Florida Derby at Gulfstream Park. . . . Trim Colony, which finished runner-up in both the Grade I Oak Leaf Stakes and Hollywood Starlet last year, is scheduled to make her 1986 debut Wednesday in the $60,000-added Santa Ysabel Stakes, according to trainer Chris Speckert. . . . Starting Wednesday, the first post at Santa Anita will be at 1 p.m. instead of 12:30.