OAK TREE OPENER : Meeting Has a Different Role This Year Because the Breeders’ Cup Stage Has Moved East

With three of the first four Breeders’ Cups held in California, the Oak Tree meeting at Santa Anita was a bigger conduit for the stars than New Haven to Broadway.

Of the 228 horses that ran in the Breeders’ Cup in 1984, 1986 and 1987, more than one in three auditioned during Oak Tree. Five horses--Chief’s Crown, Capote, Skywalker, Success Express and Ferdinand--leapfrogged from Oak Tree races to victories in the Breeders’ Cup. Horses used an Oak Tree foundation to earn $9.3 million in Breeders’ Cup purses.

But this year, because of geography and timing, the Oak Tree season, which opens today with a 9-race card starting at 1 o’clock, will no longer be Tryout City.

For one thing, the Breeders’ Cup isn’t in California, it’s in Kentucky--at Churchill Downs--and Eastern trainers don’t need to prep their horses during Oak Tree to get them ready for the main event, which was held at Santa Anita in 1986 and at Hollywood Park in 1984 and 1987. In the Hollywood Park years, Oak Tree benefited, because its season ended just a few days before the Breeders’ Cup was run.

For another thing, the Breeders’ Cup this year will be on Nov. 5, which means that some of Oak Tree’s racing will be too close to that date for a trainer to run at Santa Anita and then ship to Louisville.

The Oak Tree racing department has tried to overcome some of these obstacles, scheduling three of the season’s five major races at the start of the meeting. But the two others--the $400,000 Yellow Ribbon and the $200,000 Carleton F. Burke Handicap--will be run on the same weekend as the Breeders’ Cup.

The three other major races at Oak Tree are the $400,000 Oak Tree Invitational this Sunday and two 2-year-old stakes--the $200,000 Oak Leaf for fillies next Monday and the $200,000 Norfolk for colts Oct. 15.

The list of invitees to the Oak Tree Invitational indicates how shallow the grass division is this year. The favorite will probably be Sword Dance, who ran three strong races at Del Mar. But he’s been in only one stake this year--a win in the Del Mar Handicap--and had raced just seven times in his life.

Five of the horses Sword Dance beat in the Del Mar Handicap will try again to beat him Sunday. A sixth, Swink, went lame in a workout the other day. Two of the foreign horses invited are not coming and the horses expected to replace them will come off the alternates’ list.

The most intriguing race of the meeting might well have been the minor $100,000 Yankee Valor Handicap, at 1 1/16 miles on dirt Saturday, because it figured to be the first start for Ferdinand in more than three months. But the weights were released Tuesday, and trainer Charlie Whittingham may keep Ferdinand in the barn. If he runs, he will carry 126 pounds, 10 more than Speeding Light, the next horse on the weight list.

Ferdinand, winner of both the Kentucky Derby in 1986 and the Breeders’ Cup Classic in 1987, when he was voted horse of the year, has become a curiosity in 1988. In only five races, he has finished second three times at Santa Anita and was last and third, badly beaten both times, at Hollywood Park.

If Ferdinand doesn’t run Saturday, another spot for him is the Goodwood Handicap, at 1 1/8 miles, Oct. 22. One Las Vegas odds maker lists Ferdinand at 8-1 to repeat in the Breeders’ Cup Classic.

One of today’s two opening stakes is the Autumn Days, 6 1/2 furlongs, down the hill, for fillies and mares. Of the 27 horses nominated, 19 were entered to run. The race has been divided eight times in the last 12 years, but there will be only one running today, with a maximum field of 14.

Whittingham, who may start Jeanne Jones today, won the first Autumn Days ever run, with Tell in 1969. The winner’s-circle picture shows that although some things change, others stay the same. Bill Shoemaker, aboard Tell, had black hair instead gray, Whittingham had no hair even then, and also on hand was the late Jimmy Durante, winning by a nose as usual.

Horse Racing Notes

Oak Tree’s 27-day season runs through Nov. 7, with no racing on Monday and Tuesday except for next Monday and Nov. 7. . . . Gary Stevens, back from riding in New York while the Los Angeles County Fair meet was on, is shooting for his third straight Oak Tree riding title. . . . Stanley Hough, winner of 600 races, more than anyone in Calder history, has moved his headquarters from Florida to Southern California.

Top Corsage could become a millionaire by running either first or second in the Autumn Days. . . . The payoff ceiling for the Pick Nine is $500,000 because of the brevity of the Oak Tree meeting.