Nasr el Arab Takes to Mud, Wins the Strub

Pat Valenzuela, who by his own count has had nine lives, and Charlie Whittingham, who has lived one full one, teamed to win the $500,000 Charles H. Strub Stakes Sunday, thanks to a horse who might run on hot coals if they gave him the chance.

Nasr el Arab, already an established performer on grass, was not only tested on dirt for the first time, but he was also exposed to the treacherous going that had horses sticking and falling all day at Santa Anita.

The 4-year-old from France made a powerful move on the far turn and came from fourth place to beat Perceive Arrogance by four lengths to win the $275,000 first prize before a crowd of 41,972 on a cold, partly cloudy day.

Beating a field weakened by the late scratch of Cherokee Colony, the 2-1 morning-line favorite, was the easy part for Nasr el Arab.

But pulling up after the race was an adventure. In circling the clubhouse turn, Nasr el Arab stepped in a deep spot on the muddy track, went down and sent Valenzuela into the goo.

Both horse and rider recovered.

One other winner on the card fell past the finish line and a trailer in the last race also went down.

Valenzuela and Whittingham are experienced winners of the Strub, though never together. Valenzuela, 26, won the stake for the third time, all since 1983, and Whittingham, 75, won his third Strub and the first since 1975.

Whittingham, who has won more than 500 stakes and more $100,000 races than any other trainer, was elected to the Hall of Fame before Valenzuela was a teen-ager.

Valenzuela, in and out of drug rehabilitation clinics and the victim of bad luck and a hot temper in recent years, had never ridden Nasr el Arab before, not even for a morning workout.

He got the mount after Gary Stevens, the colt’s jockey in all three previous U.S. starts, stayed with Speedratic, another horse he has been riding.

Speedratic ran fourth in a strung-out finish. Perceive Arrogance was 7 1/2 lengths better than Silver Circus, who was a head better than Speedratic in the seven-horse field.

Favored Nasr el Arab carried 123 pounds, which was second in the weights by a pound to the fifth-place Dynaformer.

Nasr el Arab ran 1 1/4miles in 2:02 1/5 and paid $6.40, $4 and $3.20. Perceive Arrogance paid$4.60 and $3.40 and Silver Circus paid $3.80.

Valenzuela’s career, which hit a high point in 1986 when his personal earnings were an estimated $700,000, reads like a soap opera.

Last year he left Santa Anita after being suspended by the stewards, tested positive for cocaine in New Mexico and broke a leg in a starting-gate accident in Chicago.

Back in California last fall, he punched Stevens in the face and broke his hand in a jockeys’ room incident at Hollywood Park and 5 weeks ago he suffered a broken cheekbone in a spill at Santa Anita.

“My life has never been any better than it is now,” Valenzuela said Sunday. “I’m very fortunate that God has brought me back. He’s given me nine lives.”

Valenzuela didn’t have much doubt about Nasr el Arab being able to handle the mud.

“I’ve found that horses that like the turf also like mud,” he said. “Soft going agrees with them.”

Whittingham concurred and never gave much thought to scratching Nasr el Arab.

Whittingham’s former assistant, Chris Speckert, declared Cherokee Colony from the race midway through the afternoon and said that his colt would run next Sunday in the San Antonio Handicap.

“It would have been too risky running him,” Speckert said. “And now we’ve got the 1 1/8-mile race, which might be a better distance for him, anyway, at this stage of the game.”

Unraced as a 2-year-old, Nasr el Arab won two of seven starts in 1987 in France.

Right off the plane, Nasr el Arab won the Oak Tree Invitational at Santa Anita in October, then added a victory in the Burke in November.

In the Hollywood Turf Cup five-weeks ago, Great Communicator, following up his Breeders’ Cup victory, beat the third-place Nasr el Arab by three lengths.

Nasr el Arab’s owner, Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, paid a $20,000 penalty to run because the horse wasn’t nominated, and the colt became the first supplementary winner of the Strub and the first winner of the stake without experience on dirt.

“There was nothing you could do with the track, and we put the money up, so we decided to run,” Whittingham said. “The track was drying out, and I didn’t think the other horses could get the mile and a quarter.

“This horse is a true stayer, he can go a mile and a half or a mile and a quarter. In Europe, he handled all kinds of tracks. He’s not big, but he’s classy.”

Whittingham saddled another modestly built horse, the 4-year-old filly Goodbye Halo, to win the La Canada Saturday, and became the first trainer to win that stake and the Strub in the same year.

Whittingham said that Nasr el Arab has the ability to be better than Perrault, who in 1982 ran first in the Santa Anita Handicap on dirt and the Arlington Million on grass, only to be disqualified for interference at Santa Anita.

“Give this horse an Eclipse Award already,” Valenzuela said. “He might be horse of the year.”

Valenzuela positioned Nasr el Arab in fifth place while Mi Preferido, Speedratic, Undercut and Perceive Arrogance ran ahead of them through the first three-quarters of a mile.

Mi Preferido began to tire on the turn and Nasr el Arab took off willingingly on the outside of Perceive Arrogance and Speedratic. At the top of the stretch, Nasr el Arab had collared the leaders and already it looked as if only the winning margin was in question.

“I hit him and he accelerated,” Valenzuela said. “This has got to be the best horse in the country.”

Whittingham nervously watched from the winner’s circle when Nasr el Arab and Valenzuela went down on the other side of the track.

“The mud was steep and the horse stumbled and fell,” Valenzuela said. “I was very scared when it happened. We had almost stopped when the horse kind of stumbled and just laid down.”

Laffit Pincay, astride Perceive Arrogance, rode the race he thought he would. “I just didn’t plan for the other horse to run so big,” Pincay said.

Eddie Delahoussaye, riding Silver Circus, said afterward that the gelding would do better back on grass. Stevens said that Speedratic got “leg-weary” and McCarron said that Mi Preferido couldn’t get any solid footing.

Angel Cordero, in from New York to ride Dynaformer, bemoaned the condition of the track.

“Even the horses that like it so much wind up laying down on it,” Cordero said. “When Saratoga, with that black clay, gets wet, it’s bad, but not this bad.

“If a horse doesn’t like it, he won’t run. The winner was the only horse that wanted to go that far in this stuff.”

Asked for his plans, Whittingham said: “We’ll go where the money is.”

Nasr el Arab won’t have to go far to run in the $1-million Santa Anita Handicap on March 5, but he hasn’t been nominated for that stake, either, and his owner would have to pay a $25,000 penalty to get in. Considering the horse, just about any fee would be a worthwhile investment.

Horse Racing Notes

Charlie Whittingham, whose previous Strub wins were with Drin in 1967 and Stardust Mel in 1975, lost three photo finishes--with Ferdinand, Greinton and Load the Cannons--in the stake in the five years before Sunday. . . . Pat Valenzuela’s other Strub wins were with Swing Till Dawn--also in the mud--in 1983 and Snow Chief in 1987. . . . No Can Lose was another horse scratched from the Strub.

Nasr el Arab doesn’t go to the post with a lead pony. “He doesn’t need one,” Whittingham said. “If they don’t need one, you don’t use one. I turn my wife loose without a pony, too.” . . . Whittingham’s other weekend stakes winner, Goodbye Halo, is scheduled to run in the $300,000 Santa Margarita on Feb. 19.

Top 3-year-olds Is It True and Houston will begin serious training at Hollywood Park because of the muddy track condition at Santa Anita Anita. . . . In another stake at Santa Anita Sunday, the B. Thoughtful Handicap was taken off the grass and Carita Tostada, a Chilean import, won her first race in seven American starts, beating Flattering News by 10 lengths. . . . Russell Baze won three races, Valenzuela won the race after the Strub and two offspring of Vigors finished first Sunday.