Horse Racing / Bill Christine : With Top Horses Out, Sprinter Bedside Promise May Try the Big ‘Cap

With Precisionist retired and Super Diamond injured, horsemen are reconsidering their positions on the $1-million Santa Anita Handicap March 8.

Bedside Promise, for instance, has been considered a sprinter for his entire career, but after the 5-year-old’s six-length win at a mile last Saturday in the Kyne Handicap at Bay Meadows, his handlers are wondering if they’ve got a horse capable of going farther.

“There’s no telling how far this horse can go,” said Gary Stevens, who rode Bedside Promise at Bay Meadows. “He’s rating (relaxing) real kind for me now.”

Stevens is 3 for 3 aboard Bedside Promise, having also won the National Sprint Championship at Hollywood Park and the Palos Verdes Handicap at Santa Anita late last year.

Before that, the son of Honest Pleasure finished third in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint at Santa Anita. A $50,000 yearling purchase by Sony Jawl, Bedside Promise has earned more than $700,000.

The last time Bedside Promise was asked to run more than a mile, he lost the lead in the stretch and finished second in a 1 1/8-mile race at Longacres last July. The Big ‘Cap is 1 miles.

Bedside Promise’s trainer, Bobby Martin, had a schedule planned for the horse this year, concluding with another appearance in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint, which will be run at Hollywood Park in November. But now there could be some changes that may include the Big ‘Cap.

Another consideration at Santa Anita is that it would cost a supplementary fee of $25,000 for Bedside Promise to run, because he wasn’t nominated. But the horse has already earned that much and plenty more on the track.

Super Diamond, who is on a four-stake winning streak, will miss the San Pasqual on Feb. 1 and the San Antonio on Feb. 22, which makes his status iffy for the Big ‘Cap.

Super Diamond, who hasn’t run since late last year, was scratched from the San Carlos Handicap Jan. 10. He worked the next day, but was limping last weekend. X-rays of his right foreleg were negative, but trainer Eddie Gregson said the 7-year-old gelding would be X-rayed again in about a week.

The Breeders’ Cup has been called the Super Bowl of racing, but there’s no comparison between the two events in terms of buying television time.

A minute during Sunday’s Bronco-Giant telecast will cost advertisers $1.2 million. Last November, when the Breeders’ Cup was held at Santa Anita, minute spots were listed at $90,000.

One of the easiest trips Broad Brush ever made to a race was the 4-year-old colt’s 3,000-mile flight to Los Angeles for his second-place finish in last Sunday’s San Fernando Stakes at Santa Anita.

It was only the second time Broad Brush was shipped by air. The rest of his career, he’s been vanned to tracks from his barn at Pimlico, with trainer Dick Small doing almost all of the driving.

Small even vanned Broad Brush the 400 miles from Baltimore to Louisville for his third-place finish in last year’s Kentucky Derby.

“It’s practical most of the time,” Small said. “When you consider getting the horse from the track to the airport, and then from the airport to the track at the other end, there’s usually not much difference in time.”

Broad Brush traveled about 6,000 miles by van last year.

“One good thing about the horse making all that money ($1.4 million),” Small said. “I was able to buy a new van.”

When officials recently attempted to open their track on a Sunday at Batavia Downs, a harness facility in Upstate New York, they discovered that their mutuel and concessions money was mistakenly secured in their bank’s time vault, with the release set for the following morning.

Bank officials agreed to break into the vault, but estimated that it would take eight hours (where’s Willie Sutton when you need him?).

Track officials scrambled all over town, phoning motels, grocery stores and retail outlets to borrow money to get the day started.

They came up with $50,000 in cash, including Sunday collection money from two churches.

Corey Black is philosophical about not winning the Eclipse Award as last year’s outstanding apprentice jockey.

“There’s nothing I can do about it,” said Black, who turned 18 on Jan. 11.

In a split vote, Black lost out to Allen Stacy, the Maryland rider who led all apprentices with 278 wins. Black was the national apprentice leader in purses with more than $3.5 million.

In another mild surprise, Pat Day won his second Eclipse in the last three years, as the year’s best journeyman jockey.

Day had solid credentials--he won more races and more stakes than anybody else; he finished with $6.4 million in purses and his winning percentage of .302 was the highest in 20 years. What probably also helped him is that he rode everywhere--New York, the Midwest, in California--and most of the voters frequently saw him in action.

Jose Santos, the national leader in purses with $11.3 million, stayed mainly in New York. Santos was told by a reporter that he had won the title and showed up at the New York press conference the day the Eclipse Awards were announced.

Horse Racing Notes Of the 294 eligible voters for the Eclipse Awards, only 229 voted. All picked Lady’s Secret as the best older female, and all but three selected Manila as the champion male grass runner. . . . Manila, by the way, will start out running on the dirt this year, then will be pointed for the Arlington Million on grass in late summer. Manila has only one win on dirt--his maiden victory in March of last year--and that was also his last start on the main track. . . . Masterful Advocate, third after a slow start in the Hollywood Futurity and winner of the Los Feliz at Santa Anita last week, is scheduled to run next in the El Camino Real Derby at Bay Meadows Feb. 1. A win in that stake was one of the early successes for Snow Chief en route to the 3-year-old colt championship last year.

Melair’s recent operation, in which 80% of her large colon was removed, was done with a relatively new procedure. Five of nine horses survived similar operations last year. . . . Some local horse lovers are forming a group, called the California Equine Retirement Foundation, to care for old geldings and mares that cannot be bred. The organizers, who include Grace Belcoure, owners Louise and Artie Julian and equine artist Christine Picavet, are trying to raise money and obtain farm land. . . . Although San Fernando winner Variety Road is eligible for the Santa Anita Handicap, trainer Bruce Headley says that the race is not on the horse’s schedule.

ESPN will carry a live telecast of Keeneland’s Blue Grass Stakes, the last major prep race for the Kentucky Derby, on April 23. Does that mean that Keeneland, which has never had a track announcer, will break with its unique tradition and carry the race with sound on monitors around the track? Probably not. A Keeneland official said that the track would probably just carry its regular in-house picture, sans sound. . . . ABC, carrying all three Triple Crown races, will also cover six other 3-year-old stakes this year, including the doubleheader of the Santa Anita Derby and the Florida Derby on April 4. Santa Anita will run its derby as an earlier race on the program to accommodate the network.

Trainer Charlie Whittingham still has four breeding rights left to Ack Ack, the sire of Broad Brush. Whittingham trained Ack Ack for two years, including his Horse-of-the-Year campaign in 1971. . . . On-track business was down in New York last year, attendance being off 4.9% and betting lagging 2.5% behind 1985. Betting soared, however, away from the track. The state’s off-track system and simulcasting of the New York races to other tracks resulted in an overall gain of 7.6% over the previous year. . . . Gene Vallandingham, the Los Alamitos harness driver who says he has no retirement plans at 46, has become the 109th driver to reach 2,000 victories.