Pincay, Bayakoa Eclipse Distaff Field by 1 1/2 Lengths : Other Races: Prized takes the Turf, and Dancing Spree wins the Sprint at Gulfstream Park.

It was obvious, right? Bayakoa had no chance.

It was too hot. She had a bad post. There were rabbits everywhere. And for all trainer Ron McAnally knew, Bayakoa’s stars were probably so far out of alignment, she should have stayed in California.

Oblivious to these ominous portents, the grand mare from Argentina overcame everything to defeat the tenacious 3-year-old filly, Gorgeous, by 1 1/2 lengths in the $1-million Breeders’ Cup Distaff Saturday at Gulfstream Park.

In so doing, Bayakoa tied a brilliant ribbon around an Eclipse Award that had already been wrapped up with late-season victories in the Spinster Stakes and the Ruffian Handicap.

Bayakoa’s race even dazzled her owners, Frank and Jan Whitham of Kansas, who thought they had already seen Bayakoa at her best.

In fact, Bayakoa was so impressive in victory--her seventh in a Grade I race this season--that there was a grass-roots movement immediately after the Distaff to draft her as a logical candidate for horse of the year.

Such talk died quietly after Sunday Silence and Easy Goer put on their show in the Classic, but the feeling lingered long after sunset that Bayakoa may be one of the finest mares of the modern era. She is certainly one of the most exciting.

Bayakoa’s trademark--besides her lolling tongue and pronounced overbite--is a freakish ration of early speed that tends to break hearts and discourage serious pursuit.

Yet, it was just such speed that figured to be her undoing in the Distaff. Wayne Lukas, who had won the race three times with three champions, had aligned Wonder’s Delight, Highest Glory and Winning Colors to triple-team Bayakoa with a relay of early pressure. The script called for the fourth Lukas runner, Eugene Klein’s Open Mind, to come along at the end after Bayakoa was spent.

“If that happens,” Klein said, “and Open Mind runs the race she’s capable of, I think we’ll have a chance.”

But the suicide pace never materialized.

Wonder’s Delight, ridden by the little-known James Bruin, folded over from her No. 6 post and took the lead as the field of 10 raced through the stretch and into the first turn. Pincay sensed that the pace was not fast.

“She was really relaxed that first sixteenth of a mile,” jockey Laffit Pincay said of Bayakoa. “Then, when she hit the turn, she got just a little rank. But by the time we got to the backstretch, she was going easy again.”

Pincay shifted Bayakoa off the rail, left Highest Glory in her dust and reeled in Wonder’s Delight. Meanwhile, from the middle of the pack, Eddie Delahoussaye started riding Gorgeous in earnest.

“I knew they weren’t going fast enough to make Bayakoa back up,” Delahoussaye said. “I had to go get her.”

To her credit, Gorgeous tried to make it a horse race through the final quarter-mile.

“I could feel something coming (from behind),” said Pincay, who rarely peeks back at the opposition. “But my filly was still strong.”

How strong? Try a final furlong in just under 12 seconds. Even Frank Whitham was impressed.

“You’re kidding,” Whitham said. “Eleven and change! . . . Hearing that gives me shivers all over again.”

Bayakoa’s final time was 1:47 2/5, which was one second off the track record. She returned $3.40 as the 7-10 favorite.

Gorgeous, who had not raced since winning the Hollywood Oaks on July 9, finished 2 1/4 lengths in front of Open Mind. Rose’s Cantina, Highest Glory, Goodbye Halo, Nastique, Colonial Waters, Winning Colors and Wonder’s Delight completed the field.

With the $450,000 first prize, Bayakoa justified the Whithams’ $200,000 gamble that made Bayakoa only the third supplemental nominee to win a Breeders’ Cup event. The owners also collected $100,000 in nominator awards.

Pincay scoffed at the thought that Bayakoa would be run into the ground.

“I don’t how the idea got around that she couldn’t be rated,” Pincay said. “Anything as fast as her, you can do what you want. I’ve thought for a long time she was one of the best horses I’ve ever ridden. Now I know it.”

TURF

Neil Drysdale is not impetuous. But when he announced that he would run his top 3-year-old, Prized, in the $2-million Turf instead of in the Classic, you would have thought he had just suggested that Les Bois Park should be the site of the next Breeders’ Cup.

Prized had never even raced on grass.

“But what choice did I really have?” Drysdale asked earlier in the week. “Do you seriously think I want to run against Sunday Silence and Easy Goer in the Classic? He’s not a sprinter and not a miler. Truth be told, I’d love to run him against the 2-year-old fillies, but I don’t think they’d allow it.”

Prized, the colt that upset Sunday Silence in the Swaps Stakes at Hollywood Park last summer, silenced the skeptics with a close decision over the French filly Sierra Roberta in the Turf. Star Lift, also from France, finished third, as the American favorites Caltech (fifth) and El Senor (seventh) took a backseat to Drysdale’s 8-1 upstart.

Prized, a grandson of European champion Roberto, gave the Los Angeles-based Clover Racing Stable yet another high-profile victory. In addition to the Turf and the Swaps, Prized also won the $1-million Molson Challenge at Woodbine. And last March, Clover’s Martial Law scored an upset victory in the $1-million Santa Anita Handicap.

Half of Prized is still owned by his breeder, Barbara LaCroix, who balked when Clover managers Barry Irwin and Jeff Siegel came calling last winter.

“I really didn’t want to sell the colt,” LaCroix said, “but then I decided selling half wasn’t so bad.”

Siegel, a public handicapper in addition to a bloodstock prospector, was ribbed for not putting Prized on top of his selections for the Turf.

“I picked him second, because if I picked him on top, nobody would believe me,” Siegel said later.

England’s Ile de Chypre led through the first 10 furlongs at a strong gallop, then Caltech took the lead at the head of the stretch.

Eddie Delahoussaye, atop Prized, had been sitting chilly in fourth to that point, waiting for the final furlong to ask his colt to punch it in. Gary Stevens, on the 51-1 Star Lift, was clocking Delahoussaye’s every move.

“No way did I think Prized was going to get the mile and a half,” Stevens said. “I was just waiting to pounce on Eddie. But when I went to ask my horse, Eddie’s horse kicked it in. I never gained an inch on him all through the stretch.”

Delahoussaye had not won a Breeders’ Cup race since he teamed with Drysdale to take the 1984 Distaff on Princess Rooney.

SPRINT

Ogden Phipps’ Dancing Spree survived a rough-and-tumble chain reaction at the start of the $1-million Sprint to run down the brilliant filly, Safely Kept, at the end of an eventful six furlongs.

Angel Cordero thanked his lucky stars--and Pat Day--after Dancing Spree slipped along the inside to nail Safely Kept by a neck in a respectable 1:09. Dispersal, one of several horses racked up at the start, finished third, another neck back.

After the race, though, the fingers were pointing to the fourth finisher, Sam Who. He and jockey Laffit Pincay were held accountable for veering inward from their No. 13 post and causing a sequence of events that nearly cost second-choice On the Line his life.

After Sam Who’s veer, longshot Black Tie Affair crashed into On the Line, stepping on his right foreleg and severing the tendon.

“I came back bleeding from where Black Tie Affair’s head hit me in the chest,” said On the Line’s jockey, Gary Stevens. “At first, I couldn’t tell how bad he was hurt. He’s such a hard-trying horse. Then when he switched to his right lead, he almost fell down. That’s when I knew he’d broken down.”

Sam Who was disqualified and placed last in the field of 14.

The incident overshadowed a tremendous performance by Safely Kept. Breaking from the No. 14 post, the 3-year-old Maryland-bred shot right to the lead, seizing the initiative from California speedster Olympic Prospect with an opening quarter in :21 4/5.

Those two drew away from the field around the turn, but their efforts began to tell at the eighth pole. Olympic Prospect dropped back and was passed on both sides. Dancing Spree knifed through a narrow opening along the rail, while Dispersal, under Chris McCarron, came into the picture on the outside.

For an instant, it appeared as if Safely Kept would hold on for her ninth straight win this year. But Cordero, who won the Sprint last year on Gulch, lunged Dancing Spree to the wire and got the decision.

“I’ve got to thank Pat Day for telling me his horse (Once Wild) lugged in bad,” Cordero said. “I was thinking about going inside of him early, but when I couldn’t clear him, I went around and had a good trip after that.”

A son of Nijinsky II, Dancing Spree went off at odds of 16-1 and ran the 6 furlongs in 1:09.

MILE

Daniel Wildenstein’s durable Steinlen improved on his second-place performance in the 1988 Breeders’ Cup Mile with a bobbing-and-weaving piece of fancy footwork to win this year’s running.

With Jose Santos at his creative best, Steinlen hugged the inside hedge to the eighth pole, then came out to split the pacesetters Quick Call and Simply Majestic and win by three-quarters of a length.

Sabona got rolling late to finish second, just ahead of the onrushing English horse Most Welcome and the French-trained filly Royal Touch.

Steinlen’s win--the only one of the day for the Wayne Lukas stable--was certainly no surprise. The 6-year-old son of Habitat had already won six of 10 starts in 1989, making a national name for himself with an efficient score in the Arlington Million last August.

But even Steinlen was expected to take a backseat to the latest British superhorse to go down in flames in the $1 million Mile. Add the name of Zilzal to the earlier list of glitzy disappointments that includes Shadeed, Lear Fan, Warning and Rousillon.

Zilzal entered the race a perfect five-for-five for trainer Michael Stoute and Sheikh Mana al Maktoum. He also carried a reputation for pre-race antics and nervous behavior, but the rangy chestnut seemed to handle both the paddock and the walk through the grandstand tunnel with aplomb.

Then all heck broke loose. Nearing the gate, Zilzal balked and was approached by an outrider--contrary to prior arrangements, according to jockey Walter Swinburn. The colt became rattled, blew his stack and ran off down the stretch.

Then, to seal his fate, he sat back at the break and was eliminated completely with a slow start.

With Zilzal out of the picture, racing wide and far back, Steinlen’s 9-5 odds looked generous. But still, he had to get lucky.

“At the three-eighths pole I thought we were absolutely dead,” said Lukas. “If ever I wanted to hug a jockey, I’d like to give Jose a hug for that gutsy ride.”

Steinlen completed his mile on the slightly rain-softened course in 1:37 1/5.

JUVENILE COLTS AND GELDINGS

By the end of the day it was small consolation, but the Phipps family could at least look back at the $1-million Juvenile as a pleasant surprise on an otherwise bittersweet afternoon.

Rhythm, the quiet half of the Dinny Phipps entry with Champagne and Cowdin Stakes winner Adjudicating, whet the appetite for next spring’s classics with a two-length victory over Norfolk Stakes winner Grand Canyon.

William Haggin Perry’s Slavic, slightly favored over the Phipps coupling, rallied wide on the final turn to finish a third that may have been much better than it looked.

‘The ground broke out from under him at the start,” said jockey Jose Santos. “If that doesn’t happen there’s no way he ends up so far back early. I still think I’m on the best colt.”

Perhaps, but as far as trainer Shug McGaughey is concerned, Rhythm is a young horse on the rise who may be heard from come Derby Day 1989.

A son of Mr. Prospector, Rhythm came into the race off a close second to Adjudicating in the Champagne. Once the two colts got to Florida to prepare for the Breeders’ Cup, it was Rhythm who moved to the lead in the eyes of his trainer.

“It wasn’t like Adjudicating regressed,” said McGaughey, who had to watch Easy Goer upset in the 1988 Juvenile. “It was just that Rhythm really blossomed down here.”

Rhythm stopped the clock in 1:43 4/5 for the 1 1/16 miles.

JUVENILE FILLIES

Randy Romero likes where he sits for next year’s 3-year-old events.

The Louisiana native, who became famous as the rider of champion Personal Ensign, won the $1-million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies on Christiana Stable’s Go for Wand by 2 3/4 lengths over Stella Madrid. Sweet Roberta finished third, two lengths farther back.

The result reversed the recent Frizette Stakes in New York, in which Stella Madrid outdueled Go for Wand at a mile. Despite bobbling on the first turn, the extra sixteenth worked to Go for Wand’s benefit and at the same time served as Stella Madrid’s undoing.

Later, Romero said he was looking forward to the ’89 campaign.

“I think I’m on both the best 3-year-old filly and 3-year-old colt next year,” Romero said. “This filly will do nothing but get better. And I ride Red Ransom, who may be the next Sunday Silence or Easy Goer.”

Red Ransom bucked his shins during the summer and was retired for the season. Go for Wand, on the other hand, had stood hard training from 37-year-old Bill Badgett and has improved in each of her four starts.

A daughter of Deputy Minister (whose daughter Open Mind won the 1988 Juvenile Fillies), Go for Wand was bred in Pennsylvania by her owner. She completed her 1 1/16 miles in 1:44 1/5.