Racing at Santa Anita : Victory by Goodbye Halo in El Encino Makes for a Happy Day

Pat Day inadvertently lost the mount on Goodbye Halo midway through last year, but he’s not about to let it happen again.

On Goodbye Halo’s back for the first time since the filly and the jockey won the Kentucky Oaks last May at Churchill Downs, Day rode her to a half-length win over T.V. of Crystal in the $104,700 El Encino Stakes Saturday before a crowd of 8,956 at Santa Anita.

Savannah’s Honor was third, 1 1/2 lengths behind Goodbye Halo, and it was another 2 lengths back to Variety Baby in a race reduced to 4 starters by the scratch of Seattle Smooth.

After Goodbye Halo’s victory in the Kentucky Oaks, the 4-year-old daughter of Halo and Pound Foolish, a Sir Ivor mare, won 2 more major races with Jorge Velasquez in the saddle. At the end of the year, Eddie Delahoussaye rode Goodbye Halo in 4 losing races, 3 of those on grass--a surface the filly has shown she doesn’t like.

Day, fourth in the national jockey standings last year, probably would have added to his $11.6-million purse total had he not been separated from Goodbye Halo. A month after the Kentucky Oaks, the 35-year-old rider took a call on another filly, Costly Shoes, for the Mother Goose at Belmont Park, because he heard that Goodbye Halo was going to run in a grass race at Hollywood Park the same weekend.

Instead, trainer Charlie Whittingham ran Goodbye Halo in the Mother Goose and she won for Velasquez. Day finished seventh aboard Costly Shoes.

“I’ll work overtime to see that I stay with her the rest of this year,” Day said Saturday, after Goodbye Halo won for the 9th time in 16 starts, earned $60,200 and increased her career earnings to almost $1.3 million for co-owners Arthur Hancock III and Alex G. Campbell Jr. Her time for the 1 1/16 miles was 1:41 4/5, which was the same time Lady’s Secret posted in the stake in 1986, en route to horse-of-the-year honors.

All 4 of the 4-year-old fillies in the El Encino held the lead at one time or another. T.V. of Crystal broke the fastest and after a half-mile she dropped back to second behind Variety Baby.

Toward the end of the backstretch, Savannah’s Honor dragged Gary Stevens through a hole between the 2 leaders and shot to the front. Goodbye Halo and Day, not far back at any point, were also moving by then. Goodbye Halo, carrying 124 pounds to T.V. of Crystal’s 117, was closing on the outside and she collared the leader inside the eighth pole.

“After that, she got a little leg-weary,” Day said. “But she does what’s necessary to win. She had been off 6 weeks and was carrying a lot of weight. But one thing you know about Charlie-- when he sends a horse over, you know they’re ready and you can ride them with a fair amount of confidence.”

Both Day and Chris McCarron, who rode T.V. of Crystal, had been on vacation before they resumed riding Saturday. Day was riding snowmobiles at his mother’s farm in Colorado, and McCarron had been skiing in Utah.

“My filly ran dynamite,” McCarron said. “She gave it everything she had. At the five-sixteenths pole, I thought I might be riding for third, but at the eighth pole I thought I still might win it. Then Goodbye Halo just put it in overdrive.”

Stevens had trouble getting Savannah’s Honor to relax in the French-raced filly’s third U.S. start.

“I didn’t really want to be on the lead down the backstretch,” Stevens said. “I was happy where I was, in third, but Pat (and Goodbye Halo) came up on her hip, and she just took off between horses.”

After winning the first race she ever ran, last June at Hollywood Park, T.V. of Crystal won 2 stakes and wound up earning $120,000 for trainer Donn Luby.

After the El Encino, Luby was being sarcastic. “She’s better than an empty stall,” he said. “She couldn’t run any better than she did today. She never had a breather, they all took a shot at her. She should be tough coming back.”

Goodbye Halo will try to win the seventh major race of her career when she runs in the $200,000 La Canada at Santa Anita on Feb. 4. The day before, Day, who rides mainly in the Midwest, will be in Arkansas to ride on the opening card at Oaklawn Park. That shouldn’t interfere with his travel plans to Los Angeles. He’d take a snowmobile here just for the chance to ride Goodbye Halo again.

Horse Racing Notes

Putting, whose record has been punctuated by more second-place finishes than victories in the past year, will be favored today in the San Marcos Handicap. Putting had 5 seconds and 2 wins in 13 starts last year and hasn’t won since he took the San Marino Handicap last March. . . . Trainer Brian Mayberry, who has 7 winners from 29 starters at the meeting, won Saturday with Pricey Mac, who paid $107.40, the highest win price of the season. A $50,000 claim last October, Pricey Mac hadn’t won since early last year. . . . Another of Mayberry’s winners, Sitting Appeal, is expected to run in the San Vicente for 3-year-old colts Wednesday.