San Luis Obispo Handicap : Great Communicator Overlooked Again in Second Straight Win

Great Communicator may have won the San Marcos Handicap at Santa Anita three weeks ago, but apparently he wasn’t communicating.

Winless for more than six months and third from last in the Breeders’ Cup Turf at Hollywood Park, Great Communicator went off a realistic 12-1 in the San Marcos.

On Monday, however, even though four of the horses he beat in the San Marcos were running back in the $223,800 San Luis Obispo Handicap, there were many who didn’t get the message as Great Communicator was still virtually ignored at 11-1.

The 36,487 fans, obviously in a quandary over the group of 10 running 1 1/2 miles, made Forlitano the 5-2 favorite. Forlitano had finished fourth, 4 1/2 lengths behind Great Communicator, in the San Marcos.

Rosalie Dufrene, the Cutoff, La., woman who owns 35% of Great Communicator, looked at the tote board shortly before Monday’s race, turned to trainer Thad Ackel and said: “They’re not showing any respect for our horse.”

Ackel replied: “I’m not worried about that. I’m just worried about how he runs the first half-mile.”

Breaking alertly, Great Communicator ran the first half-mile just fine, with jockey Ray Sibille settling him into fourth place, behind Trokhos, Hot and Smoggy and Schiller.

Great Communicator didn’t do badly in the last mile, either, taking the lead just inside the quarter pole and winning a stretch dual with Trokhos to take the San Luis Obispo by 1 3/4 lengths. Trokhos held on for second by a head over Ivor’s Image, with Forlitano finishing fourth, another half-length back.

Great Communicator, now two for two this year and equaling a victory total that came in 14 starts last year, was good for healthy mutuels again: $24.20, $7.80 and $4.80. Trokhos, a close second choice to Forlitano, paid $5.20 and $3.80. Ivor’s Image returned $4.80.

Some prominent jockeys--the nation’s top apprentice, Kent Desormeaux, and Angel Cordero--were unable to win with Great Communicator late last year, although Desormeaux did finish second with him, beaten a neck by Le Glorieux, in the Washington D.C. International. Ackel feels that the difference in the last two races has been Sibille, who seldom rides stakes horses these days and who has been winning with only about 7% of his mounts at the meeting.

“Ray fits this horse to a T,” Ackel said. “I couldn’t convince some of the riders in the past that you need to drive this horse early. Ray got on him in the Hollywood Turf Cup (a fourth-place finish on Dec. 13) and learned that lesson. He also found out that this horse loves a left-handed stick. Ray was sticking him on the turn today, when the horse made his move.”

Ackel and Sibille are transplanted Louisianans, and it’s easy to tell that Sibille has been in California for seven years and Ackel only two, because the trainer still retains a thick Cajun accent. Friends of Ackel say that Dennis Quaid, playing a New Orleans cop, did a good imitation of him in the movie, “The Big Easy,” or maybe it’s Ackel who’s now doing a good Dennis Quaid.

Though only 32, Ackel has been training horses for 15 years. Ted Atkinson, the Hall of Fame jockey who became a state steward in Chicago, gave Ackel his first trainer’s test and he passed it.

“I gave up 25 horses back East to come to California,” Ackel said. “I have seven here now, where I hope to get established. I hope I’m not seen as a claiming trainer; I’m claiming horses just to keep going, hoping some good horses will come my way.”

Thanks to his own eye, Ackel already has one good one in Great Communicator, a son of Key to the Kingdom and a grandson of Bold Ruler. Ackel picked out the 5-year-old gelding as a yearling, paying $42,000 for him. Ackel’s father, George, a retired insurance man now in real estate, owns 60% of Great Communicator and the trainer has a 5% interest.

Great Communicator’s earnings climbed to $627,290 after Monday’s $133,800 victory.

Ackel says Great Communicator is easy to ride, but Sibille sounds as though he will be body-sore for days after Monday’s race.

“I don’t know if I can ride him any farther,” Sibille said. “You’ve got to ride him every step of the way, because every time you ease up, he eases up.

“I started whipping him at the five-eighths pole. Just getting the lead wears you out. Once he’s there (on the lead), when horses come to him, he’ll run again.”

When Great Communicator edged ahead of Trokhos in the stretch, Trokhos tried to come back on. Trokhos, a French-raced 5-year-old making only his third American start, was racing with an anti-bleeding medication after having bled while running third in the Turf Paradise Handicap two weeks ago.

“He was more relaxed than the last time, when he stopped after six furlongs,” jockey Fernando Toro said of Trokhos. “Now he’s ready for anything. He hung in and didn’t give up.”

Ackel plans to rest Great Communicator until April 24, when he’ll run in the $400,000 San Juan Capistrano, at about 1 3/4 miles.

Sibille may need the breather more than the horse. “Two days before the race, I’m going to work me, not the horse, a mile and a half,” the jockey said Monday.

Horse Racing Notes

Angel Cordero, trampled by horses in a race at Santa Anita at the start of the season, returns to action here Wednesday, riding Irish Lord’s Miss in the $75,000 Monrovia Handicap. High weight among 11 entrants in the 6 1/2 furlongs down the hill is Aberuschka at 121 pounds. Marjorie Clayton, the former jockey, is expecting her second child with Cordero in August. . . . Forty Niner, last year’s champion 2-year-old colt who lost his first start as a 3-year-old, won the Fountain of Youth Stakes Monday at Gulfstream Park, beating Notebook by a nose, with Buoy taking third. Notebook is nominated for the Santa Anita Derby on April 9, but for the time being is likely to remain in the East and run in the Florida Derby on March 5 . . . The list of eligibles for the Santa Anita Derby on April 9 grew to 154 when the owners of four horses--Drouilly’s Boy, Please Remit, Tsarbaby and the filly Winning Colors--paid late fees of $2,000 apiece to nominate them. . . . Four distaffers--Oueee Bebe, Novel Sprite, Perfect Match and Rose’s Cantina--have been given provisional invitations to Sunday’s $300,000 Santa Margarita Handicap at Santa Anita. They may run if some of the original 12 invitees aren’t entered. . . . A three-race Eastern schedule has been mapped out for Candi’s Gold, second to Alysheba in the Strub: The Carter Handicap at Aqueduct on May 7, and Belmont Park’s Metropolitan Mile on May 30 and Suburban Handicap on July 4 . . . Crimson Slew, third in Sunday’s San Antonio Handicap, probably broke a bone in his left foreleg.