Rested and Healthy, Skywalker Wins the San Diego Handicap

Sometimes it’s the races horses don’t run that help them in the long run. That might be the case with Skywalker, who won Sunday’s $106,300 San Diego Handicap at Del Mar by 1 lengths and now looks to be the horse he once was, before a brick-hard track in the Kentucky Derby almost ended his career.

Skywalker ran well all season during the recently completed meeting at Hollywood Park, winning the Mervyn Leroy Handicap, taking third in the Californian and finishing third in the Bel Air Handicap after he looked like a winner at the top of the stretch.

The temptation was great for Michael Whittingham, Skywalker’s trainer, to run the 4-year-old son of Relaunch and Bold Captive in the $500,000 Hollywood Gold Cup on July 20. But Skywalker had suffered a minor back injury in the Bel Air--which explained why he lugged in and faded at the quarter pole--and Whittingham passed on the Gold Cup.

“There was nothing wrong with the Hollywood track, but it just changed somewhat late in the season,” Whittingham said. “It was looser in spots, something that just didn’t work well for this horse.”

Taking no chances, Whittingham worked Skywalker on the grass after the Bel Air, which accomplished two things--it kept him away from the main track that might have added to the horse’s problems, and it acclimated him to a surface he might wind up running on later in the year.

The San Diego isn’t a major race and it doesn’t carry a purse of $500,000, but Skywalker won it Sunday over 12 other horses in a performance that stamps him as a strong contender in the national handicap picture, which has been murky all year long.

Carrying top weight of 121 pounds, Skywalker and his jockey, Laffit Pincay, overcame the disadvantage of breaking from the outside post position and they reached the wire in 1:40 4/5, only four-fifths slower than the track record, which was set by Windy Sands in the same race in 1962.

The favorite in the crowd of 26,637, Skywalker paid $6.20, $4 and $3, winning $65,350 for Tom Tatham and his Oak Cliff Stable syndicate.

Nostalgia’s Star, winner of the Charles Strub Stakes at Santa Anita on Feb. 2, also ran an excellent race, finishing second in his first start since Feb. 16, and paid $4 and $3.60. Epidaurus, who went into the day with two straight wins in allowance company after an eight-month vacation, set the fast early pace and gave way grudgingly in the stretch, finishing a half-length behind the charging Nostalgia’s Star and paying $5.20 to show.

After winning the Santa Anita Derby last year, Whittingham sent Skywalker to Churchill Downs early for the Kentucky Derby, feeling that the colt would get used to the track. Instead, the especially hard Kentucky track took its toll, and Skywalker suffered a fractured leg while running sixth in the Derby, an injury that sidelined him for 11 months.

Now, Whittingham has so many possible spots for Skywalker that there’s hardly room in his pocket for the various tracks’ condition books.

“He should like the grass,” Whittingham said Sunday. “His daddy (Relaunch) won the Derby here (with Pincay riding in 1979). So the Eddie Read (at Del Mar on Aug. 10), the Arlington Million (Aug. 31) and the Del Mar Handicap (Sept. 1) are all possibilities. So is the Longacres Mile (a dirt race on Aug. 24). Nothing is being counted out. We’ll just have to wait a bit and see.”

A 1 1/16-mile race at Del Mar allows for a long run to the first turn, and by the time the field reached that point, Pincay was able to bring Skywalker from the outside to a spot much closer to the rail.

Going down the backstretch, with Epidaurus setting rapid fractions of :44 4/5 for a half-mile and 1:09 for six furlongs, Skywalker was comfortably placed in third, behind Epidaurus and Bare Minimum.

At the top of the stretch, Epidaurus started falling back, Bare Minimum was trying to hang on and Skywalker grabbed the lead. Nostalgia’s Star, who was in ninth place after a half-mile, didn’t have enough late run to challenge the winner.

Pincay won the feature race for the third time in four days, two of them stakes.

“This is an honest horse,” Pincay said of Skywalker. “He always tries. I wanted to lay close and not lose too much ground. I knew I had the two horses in front (Epidaurus and Bare Minimum) beat, but I knew somebody (Nostalgia’s Star) was coming in the stretch. So I tried to stay with the two leaders as long as I could, so my horse wouldn’t make the lead too soon and pull himself up.”

Fernando Toro, riding Nostalgia’s Star, indicated that the idled 4-year-old colt needed this race.

“He looked good at the head of the stretch,” Toro said, “but at the eighth pole his head was getting lower and lower. There was a point where I was more concerned about losing second than winning. He gave it a good try, considering the layoff. He was fit, just not sharp enough.”