Horse Racing / Bill Christine : Lukas Appeals Sovereign Don’s Disqualification

Trainer Wayne Lukas is appealing Sovereign Don’s disqualification in the $82,550 Will Rogers Handicap to the California Horse Racing Board.

Sovereign Don, who is owned by Gene Klein, finished first in the Will Rogers a week ago at Hollywood Park, but was disqualified to fifth place by the stewards for interference not far from the finish of the 1 1/16-mile grass race. Mazaad, who finished second, was given the win, which was worth $48,800.

Instead of winning that amount, Sovereign Don finished with $1,875 for fifth.

“I’m not an appeal person, that’s not my style,” Lukas said. “But I think that if you talked to 5,000 people who saw the race, you’d have trouble finding one who agreed with the stewards. I’m just not comfortable with their decision. My horse never touched another horse. If there’s some logic to the decision, I’d like to hear it.”

Lukas’ appeal will be presented to a referee representing the racing board. The referee will then make a recommendation that can either be accepted or rejected by the seven-member board.

In the Will Rogers, there was a five-horse charge to the finish line, with Sovereign Don on the outside and Mazaad just inside him.

“I thought Mazaad started the crowding of the three inside horses,” Lukas said. “And maybe Pat’s horse on the inside also contributed to it by coming out some.”

Pat Valenzuela was aboard He’s a Saros, who finished fourth and was moved up to third by the stewards. Several horsemen thought that the horse bothered the most was Rafael’s Dancer, who was squeezed between He’s a Saros and Autobot, who was running inside Mazaad.

Lukas said that Klein had nothing to do with the decision to appeal. “Gene didn’t even see the race,” Lukas said. “It’s a graded stake worth almost $100,000, and it’s gone forever. But I think it needs reviewing. I had 72 hours to file the appeal, and I took the full 72 before I made up my mind to go ahead with it.”

Trainer Mel Stute said he noticed a small bump on Snow Chief’s right front ankle in the winner’s circle following the colt’s win last Monday in the $1-million Jersey Derby at Garden State Park.

“I thought it might have been dirt,” Stute said. “But when we examined him later, it turned out to be a knot about the size of your finger. He probably did it in the race. It’s not much--you have to look at it at a certain angle before you can even see it--but there’s no sense taking a chance.”

The chance would have been to go ahead and run Snow Chief in the Belmont Stakes this Saturday, anyway, but now the colt has been shipped back to Stute’s barn at Hollywood Park. That’s where Stute wanted Snow Chief, anyway, instead of running him in the 1 1/2-mile Belmont. It was Carl Grinstead, one of Snow Chief’s owners, who wanted to run in the Belmont.

“That small knot might have been the Lord smiling down on us,” Stute said.

“But if we had gone to the Belmont, there would have been no argument. Carl owns him. I guess I made Carl look bad, saying right after the Jersey Derby that I didn’t want to go in the Belmont. But I was the first one to speak, and I just said what was on my mind.”

Stute has this schedule mapped out for Snow Chief: the $300,000 St. Paul Derby at Canterbury Downs on June 29; the $300,000 Haskell Invitational at Monmouth Park on July 26; the $250,000 Travers Stakes at Saratoga on Aug. 16; the $300,000 Pegasus at the Meadowlands on Sept. 12; and the $500,000 Super Derby at Louisiana Downs on Sept. 20.

John Brunetti, the president of Hialeah and until recently a prominent stockholder in Monmouth Park, says that he might be interested in running Del Mar when the current operating group’s license expires on Dec. 31, 1989.

“I’m already interested in California racing and breeding,” Brunetti said.

“And the chance to get involved at Del Mar would be a way of expanding my racing interests on the West Coast.”

The State Race Track Leasing Commission is obligated to put the Del Mar lease up for bids, which would start being accepted well before the current lease expires.

Brunetti, a construction man from New Jersey, recently bought a home in Carlsbad and has six horses in training with Ron McAnally at Hollywood Park.

Del Mar is a non-dividend-paying corporation, run by a group of California owners and breeders who are nearing the end of a 20-year lease from the state. Any profits are put back into the operation of the track.

Dennis Diaz, who owned Spend a Buck, winner of the Kentucky Derby and later voted Horse of the Year last year, has only seven horses in training this year, none amounting to much. Three are campaigning at Suffolk Downs, a minor league track near Boston, and only one of the other six is in the care of Cam Gambolati, who trained Spend a Buck.

“It’s riches to rags,” Diaz said. “Racing’s a game like that. Why, my operation is going so bad that we’ve lost the foal papers of one of the horses in the mail.”

Racing Notes Kenny Black wanted to return to riding so bad that last June he signed a statement before California stewards in which he promised he’d stay out of racing for life if he ever appeared under the influence of drugs again. Black resumed riding early this year after cocaine problems sidelined him in December of 1984 and he’s currently competing at Canterbury Downs. . . . Danzig Connection, who will try to give trainer Woody Stephens his fifth straight Belmont Stakes win, won the Peter Pan Stakes a week ago after his blinkers were taken off. It was adding blinkers for Snow Chief late last year that was said to be partly responsible for his improvement. . . . Garthorn’s win in Belmont’s Metropolitan Handicap came at the same time that trainer Bobby Frankel was trying to shake an extended losing streak at Hollywood Park. The non-winning streak ended at 38 races for Frankel on Saturday. . . . Garthorn, who raced in France until record executive Jerry Moss bought him from Greek shipping tycoon Stavros Niarchos last year, has now won all five of his starts on dirt. Late-running Turkoman’s four-race winning streak ended in the Metropolitan when he finished fourth, beaten by less than two lengths. “By the wire, he was in high gear but the leaders weren’t coming back to us and the wire came up too fast,” said jockey Chris McCarron. . . . Talking about Eddie Arcaro’s recent heart surgery, Bill Shoemaker said: “When we were riding together, Eddie always had a problem. We’d take our physicals, and he’d be practically the only rider in the room who had a high cholesterol count.” . . . The rail was the worst place for Family Style and Laffit Pincay to be when she lost by a nose to I’m Sweets in the Jersey Belle Stakes on Jersey Derby day at Garden State Park. Two races later, Alex Solis followed trainer Mel Stute’s instructions, avoiding the dead spots on the rail as he rode Snow Chief to victory in the Jersey Derby. . . . Bolshoi Boy, who skipped the Kentucky Derby after running second to Bachelor Beau in the Blue Grass, won the Illinois Derby a week ago at Sportsman’s Park.