A Big Meet for Stevens, Santa Anita : They Put Up Impressive Numbers During 91 Racing Days

The shadows of the palm trees stretched across the turf course by the time Gary Stevens galloped Point D’Artois back to the finish line after the ninth race Monday evening.

Stevens dismounted, then helped unsaddle the French-bred gelding before weighing out and making his way through the tunnel and back to the jockeys’ room for the last time.

Another Santa Anita meeting had come to an end.

For Stevens, it was a spectacular 91 days of racing. In that time, he won 120 races and an astonishing $4,181,394 in purses to claim his second Santa Anita riding championship.

His 120 victories are second only to the 131 wins scored by Laffit Pincay in 1987.

“It’s been really nice,” he said in understatement. “I didn’t know what kind of meet I’d have coming off the injury and everything. It always takes awhile to get your business built back up.”

Stevens broke his ankle in a spill on Nov. 14 during the Oak Tree meeting. The injury caused him to miss Breeders’ Cup races at Hollywood Park a week later, but by the time Santa Anita opened the day after Christmas, he was ready to ride again.

On opening day, Stevens had two firsts, a second and a third. He never looked back.

“I worked out extra hard,” he said of his quick recovery. “I wanted to make this meet. That was my goal.”

Stevens, who won his first Santa Anita riding title in 1986 only to yield the championship to Pincay the next year, ended the meet with 120 victories, 99 seconds and 88 thirds in 595 mounts. Eddie Delahoussaye finished second with 99 wins, and Pincay, who missed five weeks because of an injury, was third with 62.

“I figured I had a pretty good shot to be up in the top five,” Stevens said. “I’m not really surprised, but I wasn’t expecting it, either.

“It’s as good a feeling (as 1986) because I was second last year to Laffit, and I was coming off an injury. Laffit missed the first month or month and a half or I’m sure he would have been right there also. But I don’t want to take nothing away from my meet either. I had a hell of a meet.”

Stevens won 16 stakes, including the biggest of his career, the $500,000 Santa Anita Derby aboard Winning Colors. That, he said, was the highlight of the meet for him.

For Cliff Goodrich, the track’s vice president and general manager, it was something else altogether.

“The big highlight was the inception of inter-track wagering,” Goodrich said. “Where last year for the whole meet outside these premises (excluding Nevada and Mexico, where handle figures are unavailable), we did $3.5 million; this meet we’ll do about $120 million. We think it’s the start of something big.”

By the time the final figures were calculated, the actual on-track handle remained virtually unchanged from a year ago at $543,763,191. But the $104,140,545, wagered through inter-track outlets raised the total handle to a California-record $647,903,736 for a 19.2% increase.

In terms of daily average, there was a decline of 3.3% on-track to $5,975,420, but the $1,150,826 wagered off-track brought the daily average up to $7,126,246, a 15.4% increase.

Attendance figures showed the same trend.

Monday’s crowd of 32,167 brought the total attendance for the meeting to 2,486,278, a 5.9% decrease, but the 565,220 who went to off-track sites made for an overall total of 3,051,498, or a 15.5% increase.

Average attendance on-track was 27,322, a 9% decrease. This was offset by average attendance of 6,262 off-track for a total average of 33,584, or an 11.9% increase.

“It (the on-track decrease) is more than we thought mainly due to the success of the off-track inter-track,” Goodrich said. “I guess next year we’re going to try to get some of that back if we can. I think the challenge in the years ahead is to keep growing off-track while trying to maintain, if not increase, the on-track attendance, and that’s going to be a difficult challenge.”

The ongoing battle between Kentucky Derby winners Alysheba and Ferdinand and excellent performances by Winning Colors and Great Communicator added sparkle to Santa Anita’s 51st meet, and Goodrich said he was pleased with the way it went.

“It’s been a good meet, much better than we thought before we went in,” he said. “We were hoping to average $7 million and we made that. With the additional (off-track wagering) sites next year, hopefully we’ll do even better.’

Back in the jockeys’ room, Stevens, too, was talking about the future.

“I’d like to win a Kentucky Derby and I’d like to win an Eclipse Award; those are my two biggest goals,” he said. “As far as my career goes, I’m not going to ride that long.

“I’m enjoying it now, but whenever it becomes work to me, which it more than likely will with the hectic schedule in Southern California, that’s when I’ll quit. But it’s still fun to me. I’m enjoying it.”

Horse Racing Notes

The final stakes race of the meeting, the $100,000 San Jacinto Handicap, was won by The Medic, who gave trainer Gary Jones his third win of the day and clinched him third place in the trainer standings. The Medic, ridden by Chris McCarron, covered the 1 miles on the turf in 2:01.4 and paid $9.00, $4.00 and $3.00. Finishing a length back in second place was Fernando Toro aboard Trokhos, with Uptothehilt and Gary Stevens another half-length behind.

Charlie Whittingham, who celebrated his 75th birthday during the meeting, won the trainer’s title for the fourth time. Whittingham saddled 34 winners, including 7 in a row on the turf, and finished 3 ahead of last year’s winner, Wayne Lukas. Whittingham, who also led the meet in purses won with a total of $2,371,332, previously won the training championship in 1967, 1973 and 1986. . . . Dynashield’s victory in the first race Monday gave Peter Miller his first win as a trainer. . . . Favorites won 242 of the meeting’s 819 races for a winning percentage of 29.5%.