San Juan Capistrano Handicap : Shoemaker Is Looking for Another Grand Day

Somebody handy with figures has calculated that Bill Shoemaker has been working at the rate of $40,000 an hour for the last 15 months.

Shoemaker can pick up another $22,000--10% of the winner’s share of the purse--in a little less than three minutes today if he rides Louis Le Grand to victory in the $400,000 San Juan Capistrano Handicap at Santa Anita.

Only six horses, three of them trained by Charlie Whittingham, are entered in the 1 3/4-mile marathon on the turf.

Besides Louis Le Grand, Whittingham will start Rivlia and Rosedale. The opposition will consist of Long Mick, Schiller and possibly Wylfa, if trainer Darrell Vienna doesn’t decide to run the English-bred in the Pan American Handicap at Gulfstream Park next Saturday instead.

In only 708 races, Shoemaker rode his mounts to $7 million in purses last year, an average of about $10,000 every time he climbed on a horse. This year, Shoemaker’s mount-purse ratio is just about the same. Through last Sunday, the Daily Racing Form had the 55-year-old jockey with more than $2 million in purses from 196 rides.

In particular, Shoemaker and Whittingham have cleaned up at Santa Anita, where they’ve combined for nine stakes wins in a season that ends Monday.

One that got away from Whittingham, however, was the $200,000 San Luis Rey Stakes March 29, when Zoffany and Eddie Delahoussaye out-finished Louis Le Grand and Gary Stevens by a neck. It was another neck back to Long Mick in third, with Shoemaker fourth aboard Ferdinand.

Whittingham and Angel Penna Sr., who trains Long Mick, won’t have to worry about Zoffany today. Trainer John Gosden said he didn’t have enough time to prepare Zoffany for the San Juan and that the horse has been retired to stud and will stand in Australia, where the breeding season is later than it is here.

“It would be hard to find three horses coming up to a race any better than my three,” said Whittingham, who spent most of last week at Churchill Downs, starting preparations there for Temperate Sil’s Kentucky Derby May 2.

Whittingham has started 45 horses in 22 previous San Juans, winning the race a record 12 times. He has also won the last four, with Dahar, Prince True, Load the Cannons and Erins Isle.

The Whittingham barn, usually loaded with long-winded grass runners, overflows this year. The other day, nominations for next September’s Budweiser-Arlington Million were announced and Whittingham had 10 horses eligible. Louis Le Grand is in the group.