Snow Chief Puts Santa Anita Derby on Ice : His Easy Six-Length Victory Convinces Some More Kentucky Hopefuls

Matched against a field filled with upset intentions, Snow Chief left six other 3-year-olds as though they were running in foot-high snowdrifts Sunday to win the $500,000 Santa Anita Derby by six lengths in front of 54,011 fans.

Although Garden State Park representatives were skulking about, hoping to lure Snow Chief to one of their races in two weeks, Mel Stute, Snow Chief’s trainer, indicated after the race that the intrepid California-bred’s next start would be in the Kentucky Derby on May 3. Stute has been running Snow Chief on a race-a-month schedule since he won the Hollywood Futurity in December.

Snow Chief will likely go off an odds-on choice at Churchill Downs, especially after the dispatch with which he handled Sunday’s opponents. It was the ninth career victory and eighth stakes win in 13 starts for Snow Chief, who extended his winning streak to five races.

“We’re looking at a great horse,” said Bruce Headley, whose Variety Road had been given an outside chance Sunday but finished sixth. “He’s a super horse. We’re not going to Kentucky. We’re going to stay in California.”

Other trainers around the country are echoing Headley’s sentiments, although at least two of the horses that ran Sunday--runner-up Icy Groom and third-place finisher Ferdinand--may still be Kentucky-bound.

Snow Chief pulled jockey Alex Solis from second place to the lead about halfway down the backside, passing Big Play as though he were a statue, and then it was just a question of notarizing the colt’s victory when he hit the finish line.

Slow early fractions--maidens ran faster in the race after the Santa Anita Derby--made Snow Chief’s run even easier, and just in case, Solis whacked him five times--two of them real stingers--through the stretch. On the turn, Solis, as is his style, had peeked under an armpit to see if anybody was charging and there wasn’t anyone applying the pressure.

Snow Chief ran the 1 1/8 miles in 1:48 3/5 on a fast but rain-dampened track, not close to the record of 1:47 that is shared by Lucky Debonair and Sham, and earned $275,000 for his owners, Carl Grinstead of Chula Vista and Ben Rochelle of Beverly Hills, whose total bankroll with the colt now exceeds $1.7 million.

Sent off at 3-10 odds, which made him the lowest-priced winner since Affirmed won the stake as a prelude to the Triple Crown sweep in 1978, Snow Chief paid $2.60, $2.60 and $2.20. Icy Groom returned $5 and $3.20, finishing a length ahead of Ferdinand, whose show price was $3. It was another three-fourths of a length back to Big Play in fourth.

Solis, the 22-year-old Panamanian whose only previous Kentucky Derby ride resulted in an 11th-place finish aboard Current Hope, an 18-1 shot in 1983, is relishing his prospects this time. Sheila Solis, the daughter of trainer Bert Sonnier, whom the jockey met in the paddock at a Florida track the year before they were married, has her bags packed, even though she is four months pregnant with their second child.

“What this horse has done is a miracle,” Alex Solis said. “I just keep praying that nothing happens to him. He has no weaknesses--he can come from behind, he can run on the lead, he can run anywhere you put him.”

On the first turn Sunday, Snow Chief was already saying to Solis, “Let me go.” At the half-mile pole, the jockey was able to get his horse to settle down some.

“Down the backside he heard one of the other jocks whipping his horse, and that was his signal to pick up the bit again,” Solis said. “He finished with a bigger kick today than he did the Florida Derby (Snow Chief’s previous start on March 1). I think that the fact that the track at Gulfstream Park was playing slow had something to do with that.”

Trainer Eddie Gregson, winner of the 1982 Kentucky Derby with Gato Del Sol, plans to send Icy Groom to Keeneland to run in the Blue Grass Stakes on April 24.

“It’s no disgrace to get beat by Snow Chief and we beat some decent horses that finished behind us,” Gregson said. “I don’t think anybody really thought that they could beat Snow Chief today. He’s the measure by which you decide whether you’ve got a Kentucky Derby horse.”

The 72-year-old Charlie Whittingham, who hasn’t saddled a Kentucky Derby starter since 1960, still gives Ferdinand a chance to go to Louisville.

“A 50-50 chance?” Whittingham said. “I think it’s better than that. After all, the horse is still breathing. It might have looked like he had some late run today, but I didn’t think he’d catch Snow Chief, because he was not grabbing the track like he should. The track was greasy, kind of slippery, and he doesn’t take to any kind of off-track at all.”

Although it appeared that Snow’s Chief’s latest win was easier than his 1 3/4-length win over Badger Land in the Florida Derby, Stute wasn’t saying so.

“He had already beat Badger Land a couple of times before running against him in the Florida Derby but this was different,” Stute said. “I didn’t know what to expect from Icy Groom--we had never run against him before. Alex rode him like he owned him. The plan is to ship the horse to Louisville the Monday of Derby week.”

While Snow Chief continues to pad his reputation, his not-so-famous sire, Reflected Glory, apparently has reached the end of his stud career.

Before Sunday’s race, Jim Buell, the veterinarian who owns Reflected Glory and stands him for a $2,000 fee at Rancho Jonata near Santa Barbara, said that owners of mares being bred to the stallion have been advised that they might want to send them to other sires.

“He seems to have lost interest in breeding, which is understandable now that he’s 22 years old,” Buell said. “He has gotten 11 mares in foal (out of bookings to 56), but whether there will be any more, that remains to be seen.”

But at least Reflected Glory sired Snow Chief before age caught up with him.

That is a colt who has enough to last a stallion a lifetime.

Horse Racing Notes Bugarian, who had been an unexpected entry for the Santa Anita Derby, was scratched from the race. . . . Al Mamoon, ridden by Pat Valenzuela, led almost all the way and won the Hill Rise Handicap at Santa Anita Sunday, finishing 1 lengths ahead of Hail Bold King. . . . Skywalker, winner of last year’s Santa Anita Derby, made his first appearance since last year’s Kentucky Derby and ran third Sunday. Skywalker fractured a leg in the Kentucky Derby. . . . There was one winning ticket, worth $1,035,566, in Sunday’s Pick Nine. . . . Eddie Delahoussaye is another jockey, along with Valenzuela, who passed up the mount on Snow Chief last summer at Del Mar, creating the opportunity for Alex Solis. “They wanted me, but I had left a couple of days before for a vacation in Hawaii,” Delahoussaye said. “That’s the way it goes. You like to think that these things even out in the end.”. . . .While Snow Chief was running away with the race, things got a little hectic for Icy Groom on the final turn when he found himself crowded near the rail. “I was a little worried at about the 3/8 pole,” Delahoussaye said. “I wasn’t sure if I was going to get through or not. I didn’t want to go down in there (to the rail), but I didn’t have much choice, I didn’t want to get hung wide. It got a little tight there at the quarter-pole, but he eventually got through with no problem.”. . . .Trainer Bruce Headley wore a rakish rain hat adorned with a turkey feather, but the only turkey turned out to be his horse, Variety Road. Sent off as one of the third choice, Variety Road brought Chris McCarron next to last, beating only 30-1 outsider Jetting Home. “He finally through in a stinker; its the first one in his life,” McCarron said.

Lucy Scane’s Solvency scored an upset victory over Pie Runner and Lady Classic Cash in a three-horse blanket finish in the $474,500 Golden State Derby for quarter horses at Bay Meadows on Sunday. Chingaderos finished fourth, about a length behind the trio. Time for the 440 yards was 21:89. Solvency paid $47.60 to win, $15.60 to place and $11.00 to show. Solvency picked up $200,714 for his owner for Sunday’s victory, boosting his earnings to $609,567. The Golden State Derby is one of Northern California’s two richest horse races. The Bay Meadows Futurity, which will be run April 20 for a purse estimated at $500,000, is the other.