Eddie Read Handicap at Del Mar : Pincay Guides the Favorite, Sharrood, to a Convincing Victory

The stretch-running ability of Sharrood was too much for the field in the $200,000-added Eddie Read Handicap at Del Mar Saturday.

Sharrood stayed back in the pack until the far turn of the 1 1/8-mile race, then took off under jockey Laffit Pincay and won by a length and three-quarters before a crowd of 27,023. Santella Mac, ridden by Gary Baze, finished second, while Skip Out Front, ridden by Gary Stevens, was third.

Sharrood, the 5-2 favorite, was timed in 1 minute 48 seconds and paid $7.80, $4.20 and $3.40. Santella Mac paid $6.60 and $4.40, and Skip Out Front paid $6.20.

The race bore special importance for Sharrood and Le Belvedere, ridden by 55-year-old Bill Shoemaker. They were the only horses in the field of eight on the list of eligibles for the Budweiser Arlington Million, which will be run at Arlington Park in Arlington Heights, Ill., Sept. 6. Le Belvedere finished a disappointing fourth, so he probably fell out of contention.

Sharrood, a 4-year-old colt, is owned by Sheikh Mohammed al Maktoum and trained by John Gosden. His victory was the seventh of his career in 17 starts, all on turf.

Pincay, who also rode two earlier winners, said afterward, “I was right where I wanted to be. John (Gosden) told me to try to stay on the outside. He (Sharrood) likes it better there. He won pretty easily. I only hit him once. I got out when I wanted to. I had a lot of horse in the stretch.”

Besides being Pincay’s third victory of the day, this was his third in the Eddie Read. He also won with Ten Below in 1984 and Effervescing in 1978.

Sharrood and Santella Mac also had finished 1-2 in the Stars and Stripes Handicap at Arlington July 4.

“This was a reconfirmation of his winning form at Arlington,” Gosden said. “This is a nice horse. We’ll have to see just how nice he is.”

Asked what he had meant by his last statement, Gosden said he was weighing the idea of running Sharrood in the $100,000 Arlington Handicap Aug. 29 and skipping the Million.

“I’m not sure which race he’ll run yet,” Gosden said. “It will depend on my discussions with the owner and the competition. The Arlington Million looks like a very tough race on paper. It isn’t the American horses that worry me so much as some of the good European ones that might come. We’ll have to wait and see how things shape up.”

Baze said he had had problems aboard Santella Mac, but emphasized that this wasn’t an excuse.

“I was blocked a little bit around the turn,” he said. “Actually, though, so was Laffit. He kicked in just a little too fast for me I was just kind of following Laffit. I angled out a little more than I wanted to, but we weren’t going to beat the winner.”

Stevens said of Skip Out Front, “He had a good trip, and I thought I was a winner at the bend. He just got outfooted in the last quarter.”

More had been expected of Le Belvedere than he delivered, but Shoemaker said he had done as well as could be expected.

“My trip was perfecto,” Shoemaker said. “He made a little move at the turn, but he didn’t sustain it.”

Horses trained by Wayne Lukas ran one-two in the secondary feature, the $50,000-added Rancho Bernardo Handicap for fillies and mares.

Undefeated Julie the Flapper, a 3-year-old filly from Calumet Farm, improved her record to 4-0 with a one-length victory over Clabber Girl, owned by John Nerud. With Chris McCarron aboard, Julie the Flapper led all the way and ran the 6 1/2 furlongs in 1:15. She paid her backers $19.80, $7.20 and $3.80.

Clabber Girl, ridden by Pincay, paid $3.80 and $2.60, while Sari’s Heroine, with Eddie Delahoussaye up, finished third and paid $2.60.

The victory marked the fifth time in the last eight years that a Lukas horse has won the Rancho Bernardo.

“The Calumet Farm people sent this filly to us during the Hollywood Park meeting,” Lukas’ assistant, Mike Chambless, said. “We liked her a lot right away. She’s sensible and talented and fits right into our program.

“Normally, we wouldn’t want to start a filly like this in such a tough race, but she had trained so well and was acting so good that we thought she earned her chance.”

Lukas was not on hand to see Julie the Flapper win. He was attending a horse auction at Ruidoso Downs in New Mexico.

McCarron, meanwhile, was impressed by his mount.

“Boy, this filly is fast,” he said. “She went to the lead with her ears pricked. I had never been on her before. I hit her three or four times, and she finished real good.”

Pincay said Clabber Girl “had no excuse.”

“She ran a good race,” he said. “The others just outran her.”

Shoemaker also was aboard a previously unbeaten horse, Miss Sprinklet, who was 4-0 going into the Rancho Bernardo, but she faded after a good start and finished last in the field of nine.

Earlier, Shoemaker had scored the 8,688th victory of his career aboard Select a Song in the third race.

The mutuel handle of $5,657,840 set a Del Mar record, and contributed to a record prize of $555,609.40 for the one lucky entrant in the Pick Six competition--picking the winners of races two through seven.

When the track closed, the person who picked six straight winners had not yet cashed in his ticket. He could have bought it for as little as $2.

This was the fourth day of the Pick Six carryover. A sum of $269,135 had been carried over from Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, and Saturday’s betting brought the total in the pool to $986,036.

Horse Racing Notes

Gary Stevens did not let a mild concussion suffered Friday prevent him from riding Saturday and thereby breaking a tie with Eddie Delahoussaye for the Del Mar jockey lead. Stevens’ two victories were his 19th and 20th of the meeting. Delahoussaye went winless. Stevens had complained of a headache, neck pains and memory loss after a spill at the end of the fifth race Friday, but worked out two horses Saturday morning and declared himself ready to go. “My neck’s a bit stiff, but I feel fine otherwise,” he said. “My brother-in-law is a chiropractor. He came in and worked on me for an hour last night.” . . . Scott Stevens, Gary’s brother, was unseated twice at Los Alamitos Friday night, but escaped serious injury.

The retired Snow Chief, winner of the Preakness Stakes and the Santa Anita, Florida and Jersey derbies last year, will be honored with a farewell appearance at Del Mar next Sunday. The 4-year-old colt will parade around the track between races as part of the track’s 50th anniversary celebration. He scored his first stakes victory in the Rancho Santa Fe at Del Mar two years ago. . . . Trainer Charlie Whittingham’s Bold Second, who has come from behind for impressive victories in his last two starts, will try to keep his streak going in the $60,000-added De Anza Stakes for 2-year-olds Wednesday. His primary competition is expected to come from Running Over, a wire-to-wire winner over maidens in his last outing.