Eddie Read Handicap at Del Mar : Delahoussaye Puts Deputy Governor on Top

Prince Salman, the brother of the Saudi Arabian who was running favored Deputy Governor in Sunday’s $289,000 Eddie Read Handicap at Del Mar, had the ride of his life when he went up with the United States space shuttle Discovery.

At Del Mar with 21,372 other fans Sunday, the prince saw Eddie Delahoussaye have one of the rides of his life.

Coming through on the fence while Simply Majestic and Santella Mac battled outside, Delahoussaye flirted with joining the petunias on the other side of the rail and dramatically hustled Deputy Governor to a half-length victory over Santella Mac.

Simply Majestic, who had led most of the way, was nosed out by Santella Mac for second and finished 1 3/4 lengths ahead of Skip Out Front in the 12-horse field.

Asked how much room he had inside of Simply Majestic, Delahoussaye said, “Just enough for a horse.”

Eventful rides and Deputy Governor are commonplace at Del Mar. Last year, the 4-year-old colt won the Del Mar Derby here even though Delahoussaye dropped his whip with five-sixteenths of a mile to run, and in another stake they came from 10 lengths behind to finish fifth and lose by only 1 length.

Deputy Governor was 10 1/2 lengths behind, in eighth place, after a half-mile Sunday, and still trailed four horses with an eighth of a mile to run. He ran the 1 1/8 miles on the grass in 1:48 4/5, the slowest clocking for the Read since Prince Spellbound won in the same time in 1983.

“I closed my eyes,” Delahoussaye said of Sunday’s shoehorn job. “There was enough room for us, but you never know if the others will fall in there.”

Deputy Governor, a Master Willie-Regent Miss Maryland-bred who cost $178,164 as a yearling, earned $176,500 and gave Delahoussaye his 3,991st career victory.

Deputy Governor paid $5.40, $3.80 and $3.40; Santella Mac paid $7.00 and $4.80 and Simply Majestic’s show price was $5.80.

Deputy Governor, who had raced in Europe before joining trainer Neil Drysdale’s barn at Del Mar last year, was kept eligible for the Arlington Million on Aug. 20 with a $5,000 payment Saturday and is scheduled to run in the stake, which will be held at Woodbine outside Toronto this year. Santella Mac and Simply Majestic are also eligible for the Million.

With the inside post in an unwieldy field, Delahoussaye could have expected trouble, and he found it most of the way in the Read.

With Simply Majestic and Fitzwilliam Place, who was trying to become the first filly to win the stake, testing each other on the lead, Deputy Governor dropped back to the middle of the field.

“At the five-eighths pole, I was going to try to pass Shoe (Bill Shoemaker, aboard Conquering Hero),” Delahoussaye said. “But I wasn’t clear and I would have had to gun my horse, and I might have put Shoe down. There were six horses outside him, so I just steadied.

“I had to steady again going into the turn, and then although the inside opened up, I had to steady a little again at the top of the stretch. Then everything broke perfect after that.”

Delahoussaye won the Read for the third time. Gary Stevens, who had won the race in 1985 with Tsunami Slew, rode Santella Mac for the first time Sunday in the 5-year-old chestnut’s first start since Feb. 28. Santella Mac finished second to Sharrood in last year’s Read.

“My horse didn’t see the other horse getting through on the inside,” Stevens said. “Without a race under him, he didn’t have the turn of foot in the stretch that he might have had. It took quite a while in the stretch to get rolling.”

Trainer Bobby Frankel felt that Fitzwilliam Place, not Deputy Governor, beat his Simply Majestic.

“The filly staying with us cost us the race,” Frankel said. “We would have won without her being up there. She made her move and was right with us all the way down the backside. We would have run the race a few fifths (of a second) faster without that, and that would have won it for us.”

Russell Baze rode Simply Majestic, heretofore considered a Golden Gate Fields specialist. He broke Secretariat’s 15-year-old world record, running 1 1/8 miles in 1:45 on dirt, at the Bay Area track in April, and after another win there was unable to win in two starts at Hollywood Park.

“He almost took it all the way,” Baze said Sunday. “He ran like he did up North. He ran good and game. It was a difference of night and day between his last race at Hollywood Park and here. Today he liked the footing and he ran his eyeballs out.”

Drysdale, who had to scratch Deputy Governor from his last start, the American Handicap at Hollywood, because of a minor upper-back-leg injury, was worried about the colt being able to handle Del Mar even though he had run well here last year.

“Watching him get stopped, then being in tight quarters and finally getting through, was something,” Drysdale said. “The tight turns on this course were a concern going in.”

In particular, the last eighth of a mile was a concern for Delahoussaye. On videotape, the jockey may not want to watch what he missed by closing his eyes Sunday.

Horse Racing Notes

Clabber Girl, who finished second last year to her stablemate, Julie the Flapper, in the Rancho Bernardo Handicap, won the $65,750 Del Mar stake Sunday by 1 lengths, making it three straight victories in the race for trainer Wayne Lukas and six wins overall. Clabber Girl, a 5-year-old daughter of Alydar and Jedinut had 17 seconds and thirds and only 6 wins in 34 starts before Sunday. But under Laffit Pincay, back from Monmouth Park after riding Forty Niner on Saturday in the Haskell Invitational, Clabber Girl roared past Queen Forbes and a tiring favorite, Comical Cat, in the last 40 yards and finished the 6 1/2 furlongs in 1:14 3/5, which tied the stake record set by another Lukas runner, Bold N Special, in 1986. Clabber Girl’s time was also just one-fifth of a second slower than the track record set by Santa Rosa Prince in 1985. Clabber Girl, carrying high weight of 120 pounds, won only her second stake, increased her earnings to almost $900,000 and paid $11.80 for a $2 win bet. Queen Forbes finished second, 1 lengths ahead of Behind the Scenes.

Pincay slept on a bench for 6 1/2 hours in the Chicago airport Saturday night and didn’t arrive at Del Mar until 10:30 Sunday morning. His flight out of New Jersey Saturday night was late and he missed his connection in Chicago. . . . Del Mar’s track has been playing exceptionally fast for races, but between the first and second races on Sunday, Cutlass Reality turned in an ordinary 6-furlong workout of 1:14. Cutlass Reality, one of the best horses in training, is being prepared for the $500,000 Budweiser Gold Cup at Hawthorne on Aug. 27. . . . Trainer John Russell said there were two reasons why he scratched Precisionist from the Pat O’Brien Handicap to run him in a one-mile allowance race today: Less weight and the chance to try Precisionist around two turns. Precisionist, in with 114 pounds today, would have had to carry 121 Saturday. “I’ve got the San Diego Handicap (1 1/16 miles on Aug. 14) in mind,” Russell said, “and that’s a two-turn race. So you’ve got to get the horse ready by running him around two turns.”

Joe Harper, the Del Mar general manager, has mixed feelings about on-track business suffering at the expense of exceptional crowds and betting at 10 off-track sites, including Hollywood Park and Santa Anita. “We’re making a lot of money,” Harper said, “but I’ve been kind of lonely counting it.” . . . Undefeated King Glorious, winner of the Hollywood Juvenile Championship, will remain in California instead of going East and is scheduled to run Aug. 31 in the Balboa at Del Mar, followed by an appearance in the Del Mar Futurity on Sept. 14. . . . Bruho, who finished second to King Glorious at Hollywood Park, is among a seven-horse field Wednesday in the $60,000 Graduation Stakes.