Weekend Racing at Santa Anita’s Oak Tree Meeting : Important Breeders’ Cup Tuneups Scheduled

The Breeders’ Cup series is not yet dripping with history, but in just two years, enough of a pattern has been established to make three stakes races at Santa Anita in the next three days especially important.

Half of the winners of the first 14 Breeders’ Cup races--four at Hollywood Park in 1984 and three at Aqueduct last year--also won in their previous starts. Another four of the Breeders’ Cup winners ran second in prep races.

The three stakes at Santa Anita, starting with the $200,000 Norfolk today, will also be meaningful to trainers because they have the opportunity to run their horses over the same track where the seven-race, $10-million series is going to be held three weeks from today.

The 1 1/16-mile Norfolk, which has attracted the undefeated Gulch from the East, is for 2-year-old colts. Sunday, the $400,000 Oak Tree Invitational has older horses running on the grass, and on Monday the stake is the 1 1/8-mile, $75,000 Yankee Valor Handicap for some of the best dirt runners.

Gulch, who has won five times, has built such a reputation that not many trainers want to run against him, no matter how prestigious or lucrative the race. Gulch has faced only 28 opponents, and just six will challenge this son of Mr. Prospector and Rambunctious today.

Despite Gulch’s success--trainer LeRoy Jolley says that the colt is as good as any 2-year-old he has ever trained--the Norfolk will be the horse’s first try beyond seven furlongs and around two turns.

Two of Gulch’s Norfolk rivals, Qualify and Persevered, come from the same barn. Laz Barrera is training them for the Ethel Jacobs family. Because of overlapping ownership, Barrera split his colts last summer. Qualify stayed in California, where he won the Del Mar Futurity, and Persevered went to New York, where he won a small stake before finishing second and then fourth in races won by Gulch.

Barrera thinks both colts will mature and improve as 3-year-olds. Tactically, he has an advantage running them together, since Persevered likes to run on the lead or close to it, and Qualify’s style is to come from off the pace. Gulch runs much the way Persevered does, and they could be battling for the lead in the Norfolk.

Manila, another of Jolley’s horses here from New York, was invited to Sunday’s Oak Tree after he ran off a five-race winning streak. Jolley has chosen, however, to run Manila next in the $2-million Breeders’ Cup Turf Stakes Nov. 1.

The other day, trainer Charlie Whittingham acted as though he wanted another shot at Manila. His Prince True finished far back when Jolley’s horse won the Turf Classic at Belmont Park last month.

“My horse got hurt by the slow pace in New York,” Whittingham said. “So did a few others. If Estrapade had been there, she would have won by 100 yards.”

Whittingham feels Estrapade is as good as she can be right now, the 6-year-old mare having won the Budweiser-Arlington Million by five lengths in her last start.

A showdown with Manila isn’t likely, though, since Estrapade wasn’t nominated to the Breeders’ Cup. After running in Sunday’s Oak Tree, she’ll probably start next on Nov. 2 in the $400,000 Yellow Ribbon at Santa Anita, a race that she won last year.

Ten horses are entered in the Oak Tree. Starting at the rail, they are: Glaros, with Alex Solis riding; Attention, Bill Shoemaker; Nadirpour, Santiago Soto; Gallant Archer, Sandy Hawley; Theatrical, Gary Stevens; Estrapade, Fernando Toro; Semillero, Rafael Meza; Uptown Swell, Walter Guerra; Schiller, Chris McCarron, and Honor Medal, Laffit Pincay.

All will carry 126 pounds except Estrapade, who because of her sex will run with 123. Gallant Archer, Theatrical and Estrapade will be combined in the betting.

Expected to be entered in Monday’s Yankee Valor are the two high weights, Precisionist with 127 pounds and Garthorn with 124. They are two of the favorites in the $3-million Breeders’ Cup Classic. Precisionist, winner of the Sprint last year at Aqueduct, is one of those seven horses who won their races before running in the Breeders’ Cup.

In Precisionist’s case, however, this is deceptive, since his Breeders’ Cup prep was in late June, before he was sidelined with sore feet. The remarkable win at Aqueduct was the horse’s first start in more than four months.