Horseplayers Get Into Spirit With Santa Anita Opening

Area horseplayers go from Santa Claus to Santa Anita when the Arcadia track opens its 52nd season today with a 9-race program highlighted by the running of the $100,000 Malibu Stakes.

The Malibu is the opener of a 3-race series for soon-to-be 4-year-olds, highlighted by the $500,000 Charles H. Strub Feb. 5. The Malibu may be typical of the early racing at Santa Anita: full fields, which are a delight to bettors seeking value for their money, but a lack of box-office names.

In the 14-horse Malibu, for example, not one horse entered has run in a Triple Crown race this year, and only two starters--Mi Preferido and Drouilly’s Boy--even entertained notions of running in the Kentucky Derby.

Finding horses with star quality will be a problem for racing everywhere in 1989. The top 3-year-olds of 1988, Risen Star and Forty Niner, have been hustled off to stud, and Alysheba, the horse of the year in waiting, has also been retired, along with most of his chief competitors in the handicap ranks.

Fans at Santa Anita must wait until later in the season for the emergence of Cutlass Reality, the early favorite for the Santa Anita Handicap; Winning Colors, winner of last year’s Santa Anita and Kentucky Derbys; and Great Communicator, fresh from his victory in the Hollywood Turf Cup Saturday and the leader of a formidable group of grass runners.

The 3-year-old division may be about the same as the one in 1988, which was one of the weakest in several years. Its current leader, undefeated King Glorious, is going to do his early running at Bay Meadows before his handlers think about the Santa Anita Derby in April.

Mud is always a consideration for trainers at Santa Anita, and if the rains that hit Hollywood Park late in the season keep coming, the 3-year pattern in Arcadia could continue. Since 1985, 1 out of every 5 programs at Santa Anita has been run on an off track.

Santa Anita officials expressed considerable interest in the all-weather racing surface that was introduced at the new Remington Park at Oklahoma City, Okla., this year. The surface, however, is expensive--it cost Remington an estimated $3.6 million to install--and the track, heeding trainer and jockey complaints late in the season, had to make extensive repairs.

Rather than consider a change in the main track, Santa Anita is concentrating on rebuilding its turf course.

Because of a likely off track today, Speedratic figures to be Mi Preferido’s toughest opponent in the Malibu. After a 9-month layoff, Speedratic returned to the races with a flourish. He has won 4 out of 5 starts in California, including a victory in the mud in the Affirmed Handicap a month ago at Hollywood Park.

Mi Preferido had problems with the off track in the Affirmed, finishing fifth as the 4-5 favorite and losing by almost 9 lengths. At one time, Mi Preferido was considered a legitimate Kentucky Derby prospect by trainer Laz Barrera, but he ran third in the Santa Anita Derby and aggravated a back injury in the Arkansas Derby and missed the Triple Crown series.

Speedratic, who has won the only 2 times he has been ridden by Gary Stevens, will have the same jockey today. Typically, Stevens is riding 7 of the 9 races on the opening card. This year, Stevens has ridden in more than 1,700 races and earned more than $13 million to rank third in the country, behind Jose Santos and Chris McCarron.

Stevens, 25, dominated the recent Hollywood Park meeting, winning with 1 out of every 5 mounts, and finishing 17 victories ahead of his nearest competitor.

Santa Anita officials, concerned about the erosion that the year-old off-track betting system has made on the on-track business in Southern California, is tinkering with the types of bets available to fans. The Pick Six, introduced locally by Hollywood Park in 1980, has been dropped, and two Daily Triples--picking the winners of 3 straight races--have been installed.

There is a groundswell of opposition to the elimination of the Pick Six. In today’s Daily Racing Form, 50 horseplayers paid for an advertisement that said to Santa Anita: “Please, Don’t Do It.”

Horse Racing Notes

Post time today is noon. . . . The first post will then be 12:30 until Feb. 22, when it changes to 1 o’clock. . . . The season runs 90 days, through April 24. . . . There will be 59 stakes worth $8.25 million, with the first of 14 major races being the San Fernando Jan. 14. . . . The richest races are the Strub and the Santa Anita Derby at $500,000 apiece and the Santa Anita Handicap at $1 million. . . . The Santa Anita Derby is April 8 and the Big ‘Cap is March 5. . . . The last horse to win both the Malibu and the Strub was Precisionist in 1985. Precisionist was the fifth horse to sweep the Strub series, which starts with the Malibu and the San Fernando. . . . One of the entries in the Malibu is Star Attitude, who has done all of his running in the East. He finished second to Dynaformer in the Discovery Handicap at Aqueduct in his last stakes start. . . . Drouilly’s Boy, like Speedratic, likes the mud. In the first three starts of his career, he won on off tracks at Hollywood Park, Bay Meadows and Santa Anita in 1987. A seventh-place finish in the Blue Grass this year took Drouilly’s Boy out of the Kentucky Derby picture.