Ferdinand Has Winning Return at Santa Anita

On a day noted for exchanges, Charlie Whittingham and Bill Shoemaker wouldn’t trade Ferdinand for anyone.

The Kentucky Derby winner, running for the first time in more than six months, wasn’t supposed to win Friday’s $117,300 Malibu Stakes at Santa Anita.

Ferdinand, after all, had two strikes against him--the long layoff and the fact that the Malibu is run at only seven furlongs, which is usually just enough time for the long-winded Whittingham trainee to get warmed up.

Somebody forgot to tell Ferdinand about those drawbacks. The 3-year-old colt, who had been working superbly in the mornings recently, was no mirage as he overhauled Snow Chief, his Triple Crown nemesis, with a sixteenth of a mile left to win the opening-day stake by 1 lengths before a crowd of 65,954.

After the Malibu, Whittingham not only penciled in the remaining two races in the Strub series--the San Fernando and the Strub itself--for Ferdinand, but he also projected the Nijinsky II-Banja Luka chestnut as his horse in the San Juan Capistrano, a grass race that the trainer has won the last four years and 12 times altogether.

“If everything goes well, this should be a better horse this year (1987) than he was last year,” Whittingham said.

The fans, who bet an opening-day record of $9.4 million, had trouble deciphering the 12-horse Malibu. They finally sent off Ferdinand as the third choice, behind Preakness winner Snow Chief, who hadn’t run since July because of knee surgery; and Hilco Scamper, a brilliant 2-year-old sprinter who hadn’t started in 15 months, having been sidelined without enough ailments to fill a veterinarian’s journal.

Hilco Scamper, who expectedly set the early pace, started remembering the calendar at the top of the stretch and finished sixth. Snow Chief, a threatening third behind Hilco Scamper and the claimer Lans Manus going down the backstretch, took the lead at the quarter pole, then was gobbled up by Ferdinand at the end and settled for second, 1 1/2 lengths better than Don B. Blue, a 64-1 longshot who finished third.

Ferdinand, earning $72,300 for his owner, Elizabeth Keck, and increasing his career total to $1.1 million, paid $10.40, $4.40 and $3.80 for running the Malibu in 1:21 3/5. Snow Chief paid $3.60 and $3.40, and Don B. Blue returned $9.60.

This was the first win in the Malibu for the 55-year-old Shoemaker since he and Spectacular Bid, another Kentucky Derby winner, broke the track record with a 1:20 clocking in 1980.

There were two things Shoemaker found surprising about this Malibu: The early fractions weren’t faster, and he was able to direct Ferdinand through the large field without any trouble.

“If the race hadn’t been three-quarters of a mile, I could have really let my horse roll,” said Gary Stevens, who rode Hilco Scamper. “We probably could have done the first quarter in :21 2/5 instead of :22 2/5. I was just hoping my horse wouldn’t get tired. I’m disappointed, naturally, but the horse pulled up good after the race and he’s going to win some races.”

The win just added to the litany of records Shoemaker holds. The totals are 8,618 wins, 962 in stakes and 230 in $100,000 races. Shoemaker has also won 27 stakes this year.

Going into the Malibu, neither Shoemaker nor Whittingham felt it was the best spot for Ferdinand.

“I thought that if he won, fine, but I wasn’t sure he could get up at this distance,” Shoemaker said. “He showed more speed than I thought he would. I was able to save ground on the rail, with nobody around me, and then at the eighth pole, I thought we had it. Snow Chief was running good, but he wasn’t fast enough.”

Trainer Mel Stute would have preferred having another week for Snow Chief’s comeback. “I can’t blame the horse,” Stute said. “I ran him a little short.”

Pat Valenzuela, riding Snow Chief for the first time owing to an injury to Alex Solis, felt that Ferdinand had an edge because his workouts had been at longer distances.

“But my horse should improve,” Valenzuela said. “I’d like to see what he does against Ferdinand the next time.”

Despite finishing second, Snow Chief’s $20,000 share of the purse increased his year’s total to nearly $1.9 million, which moved him past Lady’s Secret by about $4,000 and into first place on the national earnings list. Lady’s Secret won’t run again until next year.

Ferdinand’s appearance was his first since his third-place finish in the Belmont Stakes on June 7. Between that start and the Kentucky Derby, he had finished second, four lengths behind Snow Chief in the Preakness. Snow Chief, who had won the Santa Anita Derby while Ferdinand ran third, was favored in the Kentucky Derby but finished 11th.

“There was something a little wrong with him in the behind between the time he ran in the Kentucky Derby and those other two races,” Shoemaker said of Ferdinand. “But he’s over that now.”

Whittingham said he had made up his mind to rest Ferdinand after the Belmont and stuck with the decision.

“Those Triple Crown races were tough on him,” Whittingham said. “And he was a long, growthy colt who needed the time to fill out. He’s not like Snow Chief, who’s a tight-muscled colt.”

Following Whittingham’s lead, Stute indicated that the 1 1/8-mile San Fernando on Jan. 18 is next for Snow Chief. The near-black California-bred undoubtedly will be a better opponent then. But whether it’s one day or three weeks after Christmas, Whittingham and Shoemaker won’t trade for their chances.

Horse Racing Notes

Bill Shoemaker picked up another win Friday on La Codorniz in the third race, replacing Angel Cordero, who was late arriving from New York. Cordero, who plans to ride at least the first two weeks of the Santa Anita meeting, was on Don B. Blue for his third-place finish in the Malibu. . . . Vicky Aragon, who with 231 wins has tied the record for most wins in a year by a female jockey, is finished for the year, the result of a five-day suspension by the stewards at Bay Meadows. Aragon, who has equaled the record that Kim Rice set in 1975, received the suspension for causing interference with a horse at the start of a race, and it will delay the start of her plan to ride at Santa Anita.