Racing at Santa Anita : Dahar, Running Better After Operation, Wins San Luis Rey

Dahar is a horse who had been running in discomfort for some time. One of his testicles was hidden, and this caused him considerable pain that had transformed a competitive runner into a regular also-ran.

Last October, Greg Ferraro, a veterinarian at Santa Anita, removed the problem gland, and Dahar quickly recovered his old form.

In fact, Dahar may be better than he ever was. On Saturday, before 36,565 fans at Santa Anita, the 5-year-old rallied on the inside to overtake stablemate Strawberry Road II in the late stretch and win the $256,600 San Luis Rey Stakes by 1 3/4 lengths.

While it was a comeback day for Dahar, it was a disastrous one for Tomohiro Wada, the owner of Japanese sensation Symboli Rudolf. The 5-year-old winner of the Japan Cup, who came into the race with only two losses in 15 starts and earnings of about $3 million, finished sixth in the seven-horse field and suffered an injury that has put his career in jeopardy.

“It looked like he may have pulled a muscle coming down the hill,” said Ron McAnally, the American trainer who has handled Symboli Rudolf since he arrived at Santa Anita two weeks ago. “I saw a little bit of a shoulder problem when he arrived, but it went away and every day he has worked very good.

“I knew we were in a little trouble going into the far turn, and when he was asked, he didn’t respond.”

A couple of hours later, McAnally said that there was a swelling near Symobli Rudolf’s left front ankle.

“It’s something we’re concerned about,” McAnally said. “It’s not related to the shoulder, but it is on the same side. We’ll have to take X-rays Sunday and go from there.”

With a large number of Japanese Americans in the crowd, Symboli Rudolf opened as a 1-9 favorite and remained the choice through most of the early betting. Late money made the Charlie Whittingham-trained entry of Dahar and Strawberry Road the 13-10 favorite, however, with Symboli Rudolf the second choice at 3-2.

Dahar, running the 1 1/2 miles on grass in 2:26 2/5, paid $4.60, $3.40 and $2.20. Strawberry finished 3 1/2 lengths ahead of Alphabatim, whose show price was $2.80.

Dahar, the royally bred son of Lyphard and Dahlia, earned $148,600 for his owners--Nelson Bunker Hunt, Allen Paulson and the Bruce McNall syndicate--and increased his lifetime total to $657,000. Hunt, who bred Dahar, owns 50%, Paulson has 25% and the McNall group owns the rest.

Ferraro’s operation is similar to one performed on another Whittingham trainee, Providential II, who went on to win the Washington D.C. International in 1981.

“A week after Dahar had the surgery, he was jogging on the track,” said Howard Senzell, who manages McNall’s racing interests. “There’s no problem with his fertility; we checked the possibilities on that before the operation. If it couldn’t be guaranteed that he would still be fertile afterwards, we would have retired him on the spot, because we’re talking about a horse whose value might be between $10 and $14 million.”

After winning the San Marcos Handicap at Santa Anita and the Century Handicap at Hollywood Park early last year, something obviously happened to Dahar. He ran second in the Hollywood Invitational in late May and it was downhill from there, no wins in five races. He hit bottom at Belmont Park in September, running 11th in a 12-horse field in the Turf Classic.

“Sidney Watters (a New York trainer) had the horse in his barn after the Turf Classic,” Senzell said, “and he called to tell us that it wasn’t right to continue with the horse. The pain had been minor in July, but it must have gotten worse and worse. That’s when we decided to look into the possibility of operating.”

Dahar went into the San Luis Rey with seven straight non-winning performances, but at least, he had run a strong second to Alphabatim in an allowance race in his first start this year. Dahar broke through the gate before the start of the Santa Anita Handicap in his last start, then ran 11th.

Dahar finished third a year ago in the San Luis Rey. On Saturday, jockey Alex Solis had him in fourth early, behind the leader, Strawberry Road, and his immediate pursuers, Alphabatim and Talakeno.

On the turn for home, it looked as though Alphabatim and Bill Shoemaker were in the right spot to catch Strawberry Road. Gary Stevens, riding Strawberry Road, wasn’t concerned about anyone at that point.

“My horse ran a perfect race,” Stevens said. “From the three-eighths pole to the wire, he finished stronger than he had in winning (the Arcadia Handicap) three weeks ago. I couldn’t believe there’d be anybody behind us. Then when I looked back and saw who it was, I was really shocked. It’s sad that a horse could run this good and still get beat.”

Sad, too, was the performance of Symboli Rudolf. The Japanese horse was third after a quarter of a mile, but his jockey, Yukio Okabe, suspected something was wrong.

“After a half-mile, I thought the horse might not do his best,” Okabe said in the jockeys’ room. “He could not straighten out his left shoulder. I don’t think he felt well when he ran over dirt for the first time.”

All of Symboli Rudolf’s previous races were on grass and the field in the San Luis Rey was required to run on a brief stretch of dirt at the bottom of the hill, before picking up the grass course again.

Okabe said that the horse’s shoulder problem was not the same as the one he had last year.

Dahar gave Whittingham his eighth stakes win of the season. In the last five runnings of the San Luis Rey, the 72-year-old trainer has won four and finished second once.

“It’s tough for a horse (Strawberry Road) to go to the front and stay there all the way,” Whittingham said. “Don’t sell Dahar short, especially at a mile and a half.”

Nobody’s selling Dahar short now. The next time Gary Stevens or another jockey sees him coming, it won’t be the shock it was on Saturday.

Horse Racing Notes

Turkoman ran his second big race since leaving California for Florida. On Saturday, he won the Widener Handicap at Hialeah by half a length over Darn That Alarm and broke the track record by a second by running 1 miles in 1:58 3/5. Gate Dancer finished third, and Creme Fraiche was fourth. . . . Vernon Castle, a 3-year-old son of Seattle Slew making his second career start, was an impressive winner of Saturday’s sixth race at Santa Anita. . . . In the following race, Fran’s Valentine, one of last year’s leading fillies, made her debut as a 4-year-old and held off Shywing through the stretch to score a narrow win. . . . Charlie Whittingham has a chance to win another major race today when he sends out top-weighted Estrapade in the Santa Barbara Handicap.