Arlington Million : Whittingham Goes for Another Big Payoff

The Budweiser-Arlington Million, thoroughbred racing’s first million-dollar race, has frequently made trainer Charlie Whittingham a happy man.

In 1982, the second year that Arlington Park ran the Million, Whittingham’s Perrault ran to a 2-length victory.

Last year, Whittingham won his second Million with Estrapade, the only female winner of the race.

Whittingham has started 10 horses in the Million--no other trainer has had more than four--and even though Greinton, after a horrible trip, missed by three-quarters of a length in 1985, the 74-year-old trainer couldn’t kick about the second-place purse of $200,000.

This year, Whittingham is again trying to gang up on the field, starting Rivlia and Forlitano against seven rivals in today’s seventh running. The winner will earn $600,000.

Whittingham loves Arlington’s grass course, calling it the best in America. And he has no complaints about Forlitano drawing post No. 1 and Rivlia getting No. 7. The horses’ running styles should complement one another, Forlitano preferring to go to the lead and Rivlia being a come-from-behind performer.

But Charlie Whittingham isn’t going into this Million a happy man. Two hours before post time today, Forlitano and Rivlia, along with the seven other starters in the 1-mile grass race, will be removed from their barns and taken to a detention area, away from the surroundings that they have become familiar with all week.

Under a relatively new rule in Illinois, all horses go to a holding barn two hours before they are scheduled to race.

“What good does it do?” Whittingham asked. “The horses just stand there and look at each other. This shows what happens when a bunch of politicians get ahold of the game.

“Do they think we’re a bunch of crooks? I can’t understand it.”

The two-hour rule in Illinois was reluctantly approved by horsemen in exchange for added purse money from the state’s nascent off-track betting system. The first betting parlor opens in Peoria this week.

Horses running on medication in Illinois--one painkiller and an anti-bleeding medication are legal--are still given their dosages before being sent to the holding barn. In New Jersey, there is a five-hour rule if a horse needs Lasix for bleeding and he is inoculated in a state-supervised barn. There are no holding barns in California, just receiving barns where horses are examined by a state veterinarian about 45 minutes before each race.

“Maybe they have to have this in Illinois because of horses from other states, but they shouldn’t have to worry about us Californians,” Whittingham said. “Back home, we do what we can do. I don’t know about other states. Do they do what they can’t do?

“The politicians here overreacted to media pressure. Somebody went on a campaign to clean up racing, and this is what they came up with.”

Despite an absence of foreign horses for the first time, Arlington Park has come up with the best group of grass runners for an American race this year, and some say the best group in several years.

“I can tell you why the foreign horses aren’t here,” said LeRoy Jolley, who trains the favored Manila. “They’re not coming here just to try to beat a 9-year-old gelding.”

The reference was to John Henry, who won the first Million, in 1981, as a 6-year-old, was second to the Europeans’ Tolomeo as an 8-year-old and then won the race again the following year.

Manila beat Europe’s best, Dancing Brave, in the Breeders’ Cup Turf Stakes at Santa Anita last November and won his first three starts this year. However, he threw in a clinker last month at Saratoga, running a tired second in a field of mediocre horses.

Jolley attributes that performance to the humidity and heat. “This horse has never done well when it’s that hot,” he said. “He was dehydrated after that last race and we had to give him a lot of extra fluids.

“It’s been relatively cool here, the horse has done well since arriving and I look for him to run well.”

The other Million starters are Sharrood, winner of the Stars and Stripes Handicap at Arlington and the Eddie Read Handicap at Del Mar in his last two starts; Theatrical, second by a neck to Manila in the Breeders’ Cup and winner of his last four starts; Dance of Life, a multiple stakes winner whose interference cost him a win over Theatrical a month ago; and outsiders Explosive Darling, Glaros and Spellbound.

Realistically, it is a race that as many as six horses could win. Only Explosive Darling, a Chicago horse, Glaros and Spellbound appear overmatched.