Estrapade, Toro Win the Million

Fernando Toro has not been riding well at Del Mar this season. Through Saturday, Toro had won only eight races out of 103 mounts and two of those came via disqualifications.

Any time a 45-year-old jockey goes into a slump, rumors outnumber the horses on a track’s backstretch. The rumors at Del Mar in recent weeks were that Toro might be retiring at the end of the year.

Late Sunday, in a trailer that served as a cramped jockeys’ room at Arlington Park, the track that was burned down by a fire a year ago, Toro was asked about the retirement rumors.

“Who would feed my family if I did that?” said the Chilean rider who came to the United States in 1966.

Toro will not have to worry about feeding his family this week. Long considered a master at winning races on the grass--”Toro on the turf” has been a catch phrase at California tracks for more than a decade--the rider the other jockeys call “The Bull” gave Estrapade one of the most skillful rides of his career Sunday in the Budweiser-Arlington Million.

Estrapade, shoehorned by Toro through a keyhole-sized opening between two horses with five-eighths of a mile to go, ran off from 13 opponents to win laughing by five lengths, the biggest winning margin in the six-year history of the Million.

The win was worth $600,000 to Allen Paulson, the Encino airplane builder. Two days after Estrapade won the Yellow Ribbon Invitational at Santa Anita last November, Paulson, who already owned a 20% interest, paid $4.5 million at auction to become sole owner of the 6-year-old Vaguely Noble-Klepto mare.

For his part, Toro presumably will collect $60,000, the standard 10% jockey’s share of the purse.

Part of a four-horse entry with Al Mamoon, Palace Music and Theatrical--Paulson is part owner of Palace Music and Theatrical--Estrapade paid $6.20, $3.80 and $2.60 in a crowd of 30,467, which was about 6,000 less than a year ago. That race was run only three weeks after the main track building was destroyed in a $100-million fire. Maybe last year’s fans remembered the long lines at the rest rooms and elsewhere, because this year’s makeshift, tent-show facilities were similar.

Divulge, a 34-1 longshot, a $90,000 claiming horse a year ago and a colt whose jockey, Jean Cruguet, thought shouldn’t even be here, led the Million for three-quarters of a mile and lasted for second, paying $22 and $9.60. Divulge was a head better than Pennine Walk, who paid $6.60 to show as the best finisher among five European horses.

After the first three, the order of finish was Uptown Swell, Palace Music, Flying Pidgeon, Teleprompter, Al Mamoon, Over the Ocean, Theatrical, Creme Fraiche, Alphabatim, Maysoon and Zoffany. Estrapade, becoming the first female to win the race, was timed in 2:00 4/5 for the 1 miles, which was two seconds slower than Perrault took in setting the track record in this race in 1982.

The major disappointments in the race were the tail-enders, Maysoon and Zoffany and to a lesser extent Al Mamoon and Teleprompter, who won the Million last year.

Maysoon, the only other female in the field and a 3-year-old carrying 114 pounds, which was eight less than Estrapade and 12 less than the others, broke from the next-to-outside post position, but showed flashes of early speed.

“She was rank (difficult to handle) the first eighth of a mile,” said Chris McCarron, riding Maysoon for the first time. “But still we were third, which was about where we wanted to be.

“But it didn’t look like she wanted to run. She stopped at the half-mile pole, which maybe says that she didn’t take to the track. I had seen most of her previous races on tape, and this didn’t look like the same filly in this race.”

Zoffany, voted the third-best male turf horse in North America last year and winner of the major Sunset Handicap at Hollywood Park this season, had a more discernible excuse.

“He came back lame after the race,” said Eddie Delahoussaye, Zoffany’s jockey. “Not dead lame, but lame. Something might have happened on the first turn. He broke all right, but once we hit the backstretch, I knew we were in trouble.”

Teleprompter, the English horse who had a string of close-up but non-winning finishes since his upset victory at 14-1 in the Million last year, still had his supporters on Sunday. Off at 10-1, Teleprompter was near the early leaders--Divulge and Al Mamoon--before fading at the top of the stretch and finishing seventh.

“He didn’t jump out of his stall,” said Tony Ives, Teleprompter’s jockey. “And after being wide at the start, he made up some ground on the backstretch before beginning to tire.”

Stamina was also the problem for Al Mamoon, seldom effective going 1 miles. Al Mamoon was not far behind Divulge for a mile, but finished eighth.

“When Estrapade went by us (on the far turn), my horse tried to keep up and just couldn’t,” said Pat Valenzuela, Al Mamoon’s rider. “He was sitting easy until then. Maybe the workout the other day had something to do it.”

Trainer Bobby Frankel was forced to use a new exercise rider on Al Mamoon when Valenzuela, busy at Del Mar, could not come to Arlington for an important workout. Al Mamoon worked extremely slow, forcing Frankel to bring him back for another workout a day later.

Estrapade, on the other hand, worked superbly for the Million. Her troubled sixth-place finish in the Palomar Handicap at Del Mar on Aug. 9 didn’t concern trainer Charlie Whittingham, because last Monday the 73-year-old conditioner supervised a workout in which she went 1:12 for six furlongs.

With Whittingham back at Del Mar Friday, Janet Johnson, the trainer’s assistant, worked Estrapade in :35 3/5 for three furlongs. Estrapade’s three workouts at Arlington were the best times for the distances each day and, after her sizzler Friday, a Daily Racing Form clocker looked at his stopwatch and immediately predicted that she would win the Million.

Still, the race had to be run, and going into the first turn Sunday, Toro was worried. Estrapade, who doesn’t like to be inside horses, was in that very position--close to the front of the pack, but sequestered near the rail.

“I thought we were in trouble,” Toro said. “But the pace wasn’t fast and I wanted to be near the leaders.”

At the five-eighths pole, Toro saw a slight chance to rectify the situation. Divulge was on the inside and Al Mamoon was outside of him, and there was the semblance of a hole.

“I went for it,” Toro said. “There was not too much room, but just enough. When we got through, I thought we were going to win, because my mare wasn’t tiring at all.”

Cruguet couldn’t believe how quickly Estrapade flashed by him. “She went by me easy,” Divulge’s jockey said. “I knew we weren’t going to come back and get her. I was just hoping for the place after that.”

Toro won his first $1-million race at Hollywood Park, riding Royal Heroine to victory in the Breeders’ Cup Mile in 1984. Toro and Royal Heroine were second to John Henry in the 1984 Million.

For Whittingham, who has started 10 horses in the six Millions, Estrapade gave him a bookend victory in the race, the first part of the set being Perrault. Whittingham, who won his first Kentucky Derby this year with Ferdinand and Bill Shoemaker, had replaced Shoemaker with Toro on Estrapade three races back. Estrapade has won two of three stakes since then, and couldn’t have done it Sunday without Toro’s risky, opportune move.

Horse Racing Notes

Estrapade, who is named after a street in Paris, was owned by a syndicate that included Nelson Bunker Hunt before Allen Paulson bought her outright. European-raced, Estrapade made her first American appearance at Santa Anita in early 1985 and the win in the Million boosted her lifetime purses to $1.4 million. . . . Trainer Charlie Whittingham said that Estrapade probably will run during the Oak Tree meeting at Santa Anita that starts Oct. 1, but she isn’t expected to be supplemented to the Breeders’ Cup races there on Nov. 1. That would cost between $120,000 and $240,000 and the conditions of the Breeders’ Cup races aren’t suited for her. . . . Other stakes winners at Arlington Sunday were Mourjane by 1 lengths over Whittingham’s Will Dancer in the $112,350 Arlington Handicap and Lazer Show by 1 3/4 lengths over Balladry in the $87,360 Chicago-Budweiser Breeders’ Cup.