Racing at Santa Anita : Thrill Show Gives Whittingham 700 Winners in Winter Meetings

Ignoring for the moment the winning horse and rider, Saturday’s $155,150 Arcadia Handicap at Santa Anita was an all-Whittingham affair.

For Charlie Whittingham, Thrill Show’s first-place finish in the Grade II event marked the veteran trainer’s 700th victory at Santa Anita’s winter meetings.

For Whittingham’s son, Michael, the second-place finish by Skywalker was just the tuneup the Breeders’ Cup Classic winner needed for next Sunday’s $1-million Santa Anita Handicap.

And for jockey Bill Shoemaker, whose name is almost inseparable from that of the elder Whittingham, the winning ride was his second of the day, the 8,636th of his career, his 966th stakes victory and his 233rd in a race worth more than $100,000.

Statistics aside, it was a race in which Thrill Show, the second favorite, had been expected to do well. The only surprise, in fact, was the disappointing showing by favorite Al Mamoon, who finished fifth.

Thrill Show, a 4-year-old son of Northern Baby and Splendid Girl, covered the mile on what was loosely described as a “firm” turf course in 1:36, earning $65,150 for his owners, Mary Jones Bradley of Santa Monica, Dick Duchossois of Barrington, Ill., and Charlie Whittingham.

Thrill Show paid $7.80, $4.20 and $3.60. Skywalker, ridden by Laffit Pincay, paid $4.80 and $3.80, and longshot Aventino, with Gary Baze aboard, paid $10.20 to show.

Shoemaker positioned Thrill Show in the middle of the nine-horse field, well behind the early leaders, Mangaki and Barbery, kept pace while Skywalker tracked down and passed the front-runners and then drove past Skywalker in the stretch to win by half a length.

“He was running comfortably without me pushing him,” said Shoemaker, whose win was his 110th stakes victory for Whittingham at the Arcadia track. “I wasn’t sure I was going to beat Skywalker; he was hanging in there tough.”

There had been some hesitation by fans in the crowd of 40,473 to bet on Skywalker, many feeling that the race was merely a preparatory outing for next Sunday’s Big ‘Cap. Trainer Michael Whittingham, in fact, had said as much in an interview that appeared in Saturday’s Daily Racing Form.

“Naturally, I want to win this race,” Whittingham said. “I think he’s fit enough, and if he takes to the turf he should win. If he doesn’t, I won’t be totally disappointed. The Big ‘Cap is the main objective. I’ll be pleased if he gets a good race out of it, if he opens his lungs, if he comes out of it 100%.

“What we really want is for this horse to remain sound all year. We want another shot at the Breeders’ Cup, another shot at an Eclipse Award. If he can do as well this year as he did in 1986, I think people will finally have to admit that he’s a good horse.”

After the race, Pincay said he had been trying to win from the moment they left the gate.

“If he wouldn’t have been trying his best, I wouldn’t have used the horse,” Pincay said. “If I didn’t think I could finish 1, 2, 3, I wouldn’t have beat him up.”

As for Al Mamoon, Stevens said the horse just seemed unhappy.

“I kicked him into gear and he just started floundering around,” he said. “He started climbing and dipping down with me on the front end. He stumbled about three times around the turn, and after that he just seemed to lose his confidence.

“That’s more or less what he did up at Bay Meadows his last time out (in the Bay Meadows Handicap on Dec. 20, when the Bobby Frankel-trained chestnut finished a disappointing sixth). It was a real soft turf course and he didn’t want anything to do with it.

“He tried to run (on Saturday); he was moving right with the winner all the way round the turn, but he (Thrill Show) just ran away from him.”

Horse Racing Notes

The Arcadia Handicap was shortened to a mile for the first time. It had been contested over 1 miles in its first 27 runnings. . . . Longshot Diggers Rest was a late scratch from the race. . . . Victories in the fifth and seventh races Saturday brought Laffit Pincay’s meet-leading total of wins 75, 21 ahead of Gary Stevens. . . . Kentucky Derby winner Ferdinand worked a mile in 1:36 1/5 Saturday morning in preparation for next Sunday’s Santa Anita Handicap. “We’re ready now,” trainer Charlie Whittingham said. “Ferdinand has come up to all his races in good shape. He’s coming up to this one perfect.” . . . Whittingham, on his 700 Santa Anita winter victories: “They said I’ve got 700 winners, they didn’t say how long it took me.” The answer: more than half a century. Whittingham’s first Santa Anita win was in the 1935-36 season. . . . Despite Talinum’s victory in the Flamingo Stakes at Hialeah Saturday, trainer Wayne Lukas still is fuming at the high-weight of 129 pounds that caused him not to run Lady’s Secret in today’s Santa Margarita Handicap. “We’re just going to have to find a track somewhere that will let us run Lady’s Secret,” Lukas was quoted as saying. The 1986 Horse of the Year was to have made her 1987 debut in today’s 50th running of the $300,000 Santa Margarita, a race she won last year in a stakes-record time of 1:47. . . . Jockey Dave Patton, the leading apprentice at Santa Anita with 17 wins, is not expected to race again until Wednesday. Patton bruised his knee in a spill at Golden Gate Fields last Tuesday.