Las Virgenes Stakes : Kool Arrival Wins to Keep Her Perfect Record at Santa Anita

No one felt worse than Mel Stute after the Starlet Stakes in December at Hollywood Park. The trainer recommended to his owners that Kool Arrival be supplemented into the race at a cost of $30,000 and then she ran fifth, beaten by nine lengths, and earned only $13,000.

Stute probably had the right filly for the Starlet, but he had the wrong track. Hollywood Park and Santa Anita are like night and day as far as Kool Arrival is concerned, and on Saturday she reaffirmed her preference with a one-length victory in the $133,450 Las Virgenes that made up for the deficit in the Starlet.

The Las Virgenes was Kool Arrival’s fifth win in as many starts at Santa Anita, and this time, before a crowd of 31,659, she matched the stakes record by running the mile in 1:36 1/5. Saucy Bobby ran that fast in 1983, the first year the Las Virgenes was run, and there was another 1:36 1/5 clocking by Life at the Top in 1986.

Laffit Pincay, who has won only one Santa Anita jockey title in the last four years after winning 11 titles--and six straight in the 1970s--before that, rode three other winners besides Kool Arrival on Saturday. Pincay has won 54 races in 42 days at the current meeting, putting him nine ahead of Gary Stevens, and Pincay, with 11 stakes wins, has a chance to break the record he set in 1983.

Some Romance, who hasn’t won since she left New York following back-to-back wins in major stakes at Belmont Park last October, finished second in the Las Virgenes, overtaking Fantastic Look by a head at the wire. It was three lengths farther back to Stocks Up, a big disappointment after winning the Starlet and the Bay Meadows Oaks in her last two starts.

Kool Arrival, coupled with Stocks Up in the betting because of overlapping ownership, paid $2.80, $2.10 and $2.10. Some Romance paid $2.80 and $2.10 and Fantastic Look paid $2.10.

A 3-year-old roan daughter of Relaunch and Irish Arrival, Kool Arrival was bred and is owned by Pete Valenti, John Coelho and Phillip Fields. She earned $77,200 Saturday, bringing her career total to $256,213.

Fantastic Look bumped with both Kool Arrival and Stocks Up leaving the gate. Kool Arrival, just loping along, still took the lead, and when Ted West, Stocks Up’s trainer, saw :46 1/5 on the tote board for the first half-mile, he knew his filly was in trouble.

“I thought she was ready to run the best race of her life, but when she was seven or eight lengths off the lead with that slow pace, I knew she would have trouble making up the ground,” West said.

The stretch started to look a little long for Kool Arrival. But Fantastic Look and Some Romance, who were the closest in pursuit, ran out of ground.

“I’m glad it was over when it was over,” said Stute, which may or may not be a paraphrase of Yogi Berra. “If I could take this track with us wherever she runs, we’d be all right.”

Pincay has been on Kool Arrival for her three-race winning streak, which started with the filly division of the California Breeders’ Champion Stakes on Jan. 4 and the La Centinela on Jan. 18.

“In the stretch, I could hear the announcer say they were coming, and I could feel she was getting tired,” Pincay said Saturday. “I was whipping left-handed and she was hanging in there.

“The last race, I didn’t have to do much with her because she won easy. Today, I really had to ask her. She’s a better filly than she ran today, and she still equaled the stakes record. I’m sure she can go farther than a mile.”

Stevens, who hadn’t ridden Stocks Up since last October, had been aboard the filly for her first two wins, at Del Mar in August.

“She wasn’t handling the track the entire way,” Stevens said after the Las Virgenes. “She was floundering and losing traction. I know she can run a lot better than she did.”

Although Kool Arrival won the first two times she ran, at Santa Anita last October, her physical condition had been suspect because of the way she reacted after the races. She acted as though she might have a Charley horse.

“We X-rayed her from top to bottom, and didn’t find anything,” Stute said. “She hasn’t had any trouble since that second race.”

Kool Arrival’s only losses in seven starts came in the Starlet and in a minor stake at Hollywood Park, which produced a fourth-place finish. She’s scheduled to run in the Santa Anita Oaks on March 12, before hitting the road for the Kentucky Oaks, which is run at Churchill Downs on May 5, the day before the Kentucky Derby.

By then, maybe this filly with the one-track mind will feel like running fast someplace other than at Santa Anita.

Horse Racing Notes

There were 381 nominations, at $600 apiece, for the Triple Crown races, including 20 3-year-olds trained by Wayne Lukas and 19 in the care of Jack Van Berg. Those trainers have won the last two Kentucky Derbies, Lukas with the filly Winning Colors last year and Van Berg with Alysheba in 1987. . . . One of Van Berg’s colts, Alyone, worked at Hollywood Park Saturday in just over 59 seconds for five-eighths of a mile and the trainer said the son of Alydar would make his first career start within 10 days. Another unraced 3-year-old that Van Berg likes is Broto, who is a son of Danzig. . . . Trainers can still nominate to the Triple Crown, but the cost is $3,000 by the final deadline of March 17.

Great Communicator, making his first start since winning the Hollywood Turf Cup on Dec. 24, will face the first three finishers from the San Marcos Handicap in Monday’s $200,000 San Luis Obispo Handicap at 1 1/2 miles on grass. Trokhos, the winner of the San Marcos, was trailed across the wire by Vallotton and Roberto’s Dancer. The only other starters Monday are Master Treaty and Wolsey. Great Communicator is the high weight at 124 pounds, with Trokhos next at 119. Great Communicator beat Trokhos by 1 3/4 lengths in last year’s San Luis Obispo.

In a ceremony between races Saturday, Larry Snyder became the 40th winner of the George Woolf Memorial Jockey Award, named after the rider who died as the result of injuries suffered at Santa Anita in 1946. Snyder, 46, rides mainly in the Midwest and has won more than 5,800 races. He chose to wear the silks of trainer Jack Van Berg for the ceremony, because he rode for Van Berg’s late father, Marion, when he started riding.