San Juan Capistrano Handicap : A Briton Named Brittain Hopes to Be Spoiler Today

Trainer Clive Brittain brought the filly Pebbles to New York last year and stunned reporters covering the Breeders’ Cup by putting himself out on a long, skinny limb.

“She’s the filly of the century,” Brittain said a few days before Pebbles ran in the $2-million Breeders’ Cup Turf Stakes at Aqueduct. “And if she wins the Breeders’ Cup, she might be the race horse of the century.”

That’s the antithesis of the stereotyped stodgy Englishman, but Pebbles backed up Brittain’s raves by winning the Breeders’ Cup race and earning $900,000 for her owner, Sheik Mohammed Al Maktoum.

At the end of the year, Pebbles was also voted an Eclipse Award as the best female grass filly in North America.

Quickly, Brittain has become an Englishman abroad again, and this time he’s aiming both barrels at the colonists--running Jupiter Island today in the $400,000 San Juan Capistrano Handicap at Santa Anita and starting Bold Arrangement next Thursday in the $200,000 Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland.

If Bold Arrangement does well, the plan is to run him back May 3 in the Kentucky Derby.

Obviously, Brittain doesn’t think small, but he has not hauled out the adjectives for the latest imports that he used on Pebbles.

The 52-year-old horseman can read the past-performance lines as well as anybody, and they show that trainer Charlie Whittingham, who is starting the three-horse contingent of Dahar, Strawberry Road II and Hail Bold King, will be heavily favored to add his 12th San Juan victory. As for the Blue Grass, what originally shaped up as a light race has now developed into a highly competitive stake.

Jupiter Island, having started his trip in France, arrived in Los Angeles a week ago and, after a couple of days in quarantine, was moved to a barn at Santa Anita Tuesday. The 7-year-old English-bred--how many American stud horses are still racing at that age?--proved to be a calm traveler, and with Laffit Pincay, who will ride him today, in the saddle Friday morning, Jupiter Island worked seven furlongs on the grass in 1:29 2/5.

“He doesn’t have any speed, but he has the staying power and stamina,” Brittain said. “I’m optimistic.”

Jupiter Island has started 38 times, winning 12 and earning $322,003 in Europe, where inflated purses are not commonplace, as they are here.

The San Juan, with its distance of about 1 3/4 miles, will be Jupiter Island’s first race in five months, but the horse seems to like running fresh. His first start a year ago, after a similarly long layoff, resulted in a 1 1/2-mile stakes win in England.

“I think he is ready to run,” Brittain said. “He worked a good mile on the grass, in company with a horse named Supreme Leader, before we flew Jupiter Island to the States. Supreme Leader went on to win a stakes race at Newmarket a few days after that.”

A potential spoiler for the Whittingham trio and the English invader is Mountain Bear, a 5-year-old mare who has not lost in six starts on grass at Santa Anita.

Mountain Bear upset Estrapade, the second-place finisher in last year’s San Juan, in the Santa Barbara Handicap March 30.

Only two females--Miss Grillo in 1949 and La Zanzara in 1975--have won any of the previous 46 San Juans. Mountain Bear will carry only 115 pounds, including jockey Chris McCarron, in today’s race, compared to 124 pounds apiece for Dahar and Strawberry Road, who are the high weights, and 123 for Jupiter Island.

Mountain Bear, by the way, is an English-bred. Santa Anita may need a Union Jack for its flagpole before the day is over.