Weekend Racing at Del Mar : Jockeys’ Battle Becomes Survival of the Fittest

This year’s Del Mar jockey competition will not be won. It will be survived.

With four days left in the meeting, the standings show a tie at the top between Gary Stevens and Eddie Delahoussaye with 41 winners apiece. But Stevens suffered a broken right wrist in a spill Friday, and Delahoussaye won’t be back from a suspension and a trip to Canada until Monday.

That leaves the door open for Laffit Pincay, champion at Santa Anita and Hollywood Park this year and five-time winner of the Del Mar title. The 42-year-old Panamanian begins today’s action in third place with 38 winners.

But Pincay has been wrestling with an uncharacteristic slump that has lasted nearly three weeks. Since Aug. 21, when he topped the standings by four winners, Pincay has won with only eight of 85 mounts, including a zero-for-38 slide along the way.

If Pincay cannot take advantage of Stevens’ misfortune, Delahoussaye appears a cinch to win his first Del Mar championship, a rare piece of good news after a disastrous beginning to the month of September.

Not only was Delahoussaye grounded by the suspension, he also lost two valuable mounts at the last minute because of illness and then injury--Frankly Perfect in last Sunday’s Arlington Million and Brisque in Monday’s $300,000 Del Mar Invitational Handicap.

“And it still hasn’t stopped,” said Delahoussaye’s agent, Terry Lipham, Friday morning. “Just today I lost a live mount for Monday with an injury. It’s getting to the point where I’m afraid to name Eddie on a horse any more than five minutes before a race.

“Of course, this whole thing bothers me more than it does my rider,” Lipham added. “His attitude is, ‘Hey, the title would be nice, but the important thing is to make it through the meet without getting hurt.’ At the same time, I’m looking for a bridge to jump off.”

While the younger jockey generation staggers to the end of the meeting, the spotlight this weekend will be on a 58-year-old grandfather who can sympathize with every ache and pain. Bill Shoemaker, in the midst of his whistle-stop farewell tour, comes to Del Mar Sunday for his final appearance at the seaside track.

Shoemaker will be honored with a special ceremony after the fourth race. He also has been named to ride five horses, although his appearance contract--reportedly in the $25,000 range--calls for only three.

Chances are, however, nothing Shoemaker does Sunday will make his fans forget his most famous Del Mar exploits over the last 40 years. The highlights include:

--His first meeting title, won in 1949, when he was 18 and still an apprentice.

--A record 94 victories at the 1954 meeting. The closest anyone has come in the ensuing 35 seasons is the total of 86 posted by Pincay in 1976.

--The record for wins, set on Labor Day 1970, when Shoemaker rode No. 6,033 to pass Johnny Longden.

--Four straight victories in the Del Mar Futurity, 1971-74, with MacArthur Park, Groshawk, Such a Rush and Diabolo.

--Eight wins in the Del Mar Handicap, beginning in 1950 with Frankly and most recently in 1987 with Swink.

Shoemaker took six riding titles at Del Mar and remains the only jockey to have won as many as three straight. Stevens was poised to win a third consecutive title when his accident occured.

While the jockey competition continues to be a riotous affair, Charlie Whittingham, Ron McAnally and Wayne Lukas are calmly going down to the wire for honors as top trainer of the summer season.

The close race between the high-class stables of McAnally, with 15 wins, Whittingham with 12 and Lukas with 11 is indicative of the purse increases for top horses at Del Mar in the last several years.

Only four of their 38 collective wins have been in claiming events. That’s a far cry from the days when Del Mar was a haven for cheaper animals. The dominant trainers of the 1960s, ‘70s and early ‘80s were Farrell Jones, Bobby Frankel and Mike Mitchell, whose horses ran more often for price tags than gold cups.

Not so, anymore. John Gosden--the accomplished Englishman who wasn’t even sure how to claim a horse when he started in California--won the 1985 Del Mar title. Henry Moreno, the winner in ‘86, had a mixed barn of primarily allowance horses. And for the last two years, Lukas has taken control.

Whittingham, who won his only Del Mar title in 1972, refuses to get outwardly excited about the local standings.

“Winning would be nice, but it really doesn’t make that much difference,” he said. “Just as long as we win the most money. That’s what really counts.”

In that category, Whittingham is a cinch. He has won six stakes, tying a record he set in 1980, and he will try to set a new mark this weekend.

Whittingham will run Raintree Renegade in today’s Osunitas Handicap, a minor race for fillies and mares. Sunday, he will run top-weighted Lively One in the $200,000 Del Mar-Breeders’ Cup Handicap against the Lukas-trained On the Line, the country’s most accomplished sprinter of 1989.

Horse Racing Notes

Chris McCarron took off his mounts Friday because of illness. . . . Gary Stevens joins Fernando Valenzuela (concussion), Amir Cedeno (broken wrist) and Tony Guymon (broken ankle and collarbone) among the casualties this summer. . . . Bill Shoemaker rode Lively One to a second-place finish to Precisionist in the Del Mar-Breeders’ Cup Handicap last year. Robbie Davis is the colt’s regular rider now.