SANTA ANITA : Brown Bess Looks Impressive

Jack Kaenel was as prepared as a Boy Scout.

Kaenel, 24, bought a new black cowboy hat and a new pair of boots, then went out Sunday and rode Brown Bess to a 1 3/4-length victory in the $400,000 Yellow Ribbon at Santa Anita, a performance that should clinch an Eclipse Award.

The hat and the boots were for show, as was Kaenel’s whip all the way around in the 1 1/4-mile race. What worked for Chris McCarron in the Breeders’ Cup Classic with Sunday Silence worked for Kaenel, who can remember using the whip only a few times in Brown Bess’ races.

On Sunday, Brown Bess was timed in 1:57 3/5, breaking the Yellow Ribbon record by a second and missing by only a fifth of a second the world record set by Double Discount at Santa Anita in 1977.

By beating Claire Marine, the 2-1 favorite in the Yellow Ribbon and before Sunday the favorite to win the Eclipse Award for best female grass horse, Brown Bess is likely to win the division championship. Her breeder and owner, Suzanne Pashayan of Fresno, says she won’t campaign.

“I campaign for my brother (U.S. Congressman Chip Pashayan), but I won’t do that for this horse,” Pashayan said. “I just hope the voters vote without prejudice.”

Brown Bess’ 1989 campaign began in April, after three nondescript starts on dirt. In her first race on grass since the previous November, the 7-year-old daughter of Petrone and Chickadee won a minor stake at Golden Gate Fields. She has been undefeated against females since. The five grass victories in six starts have come at four tracks--Golden Gate, Del Mar, Bay Meadows and now Santa Anita.

Darby’s Daughter finished second in front of 31,300, beating Colorado Dancer, the French filly making her first U.S. start, by a half-length. It was another two lengths to Nikishka, who nosed out Claire Marine for fourth place.

Claire Marine had won five out of her last six starts before a fourth-place finish in the Las Palmas Handicap three weeks ago. The Eclipse voters--about 200 turf writers, Daily Racing Form staffers and track racing secretaries--weigh heavily what horses do at the end of the year, which will help Brown Bess, the first California-bred and the oldest horse to win the Yellow Ribbon.

The $240,000 first-place purse put Brown Bess over the $1-million mark in earnings. She had ligament trouble when she was younger and the Yellow Ribbon was only her 30th start, 18 in the last two years.

Brown Bess paid $10.20, $6 and $4. At Bay Meadows, where her home-track followers bet with vigor, Brown Bess paid only $5.40 to win. The rest of the Santa Anita payoffs were $19.80 and $9.80 for Darby’s Daughter, who went off at 31-1, and $4.60 on Colorado Dancer.

Brown Bess ran in sixth place going down the backstretch, but not more than three or four lengths off the lead. Miss Unnameable was the quickest out of the gate, dropping out early in the face of fast fractions, with Nikishka, the winner of the Las Palmas, and Claire Marine dominating.

Going into the far turn, while Claire Marine and McCarron tried cutting into Nikishka’s short lead, Brown Bess split horses and began gaining on both on the outside.

“That’s the difference in this mare,” Kaenel said. “She used to have to be in the clear before she’d run for you. Now all you have to do is point her nose and she’ll find the hole. And you don’t need to whip her, because she’s always giving it all she’s got.”

By the head of the stretch, the hole Brown Bess found had closed and she moved to the outside, finding Nikishka easy to pass. She took the lead just inside the eighth pole, and the only suspense was waiting for the final time on the tote board.

Charlie Whittingham will win enough Eclipse Awards--Sunday Silence is assured of two, including horse of the year, and Whittingham may also get the trophy for best trainer--but a victory by Claire Marine would have given him one more.

“The post position (the inside in an 11-horse field) didn’t help,” Whittingham said. “When you’re No. 1, the jockey can’t take back too much. But winning the Eclipse is not like winning $1 million. None of the horses on the pace got anything today.”

McCarron was content with his early position.

“She laid perfect,” he said. “She moved up comfortably, fired and just couldn’t keep going. She ran out of steam.”

Brown Bess is trained by Chuck Jenda of Bay Area, who had never won a major race until his mare captured the Ramona Handicap at Del Mar in August.

“She had been working for this race like she was a 2-year-old,,” Jenda said. “She’s a happy camper now. It’s a rarity that a horse this age would suddenly do things that she wouldn’t do before. Maybe it’s experience.”

Kaenel says it is Jenda.

“They say horses make jockeys and trainers, but Chuck has made this horse,” Kaenel said. “She’s had problems, but Chuck hasn’t run her into the ground. You can tell that by the few number of races she’s had.”

This was Kaenel’s biggest victory since, at 16, he outrode Bill Shoemaker on Linkage to win the 1982 Preakness with Aloma’s Ruler, becoming the youngest jockey to win that Triple Crown race. When Kaenel rode Aloma’s Ruler into the winner’s circle at Pimlico, his valet threw him his cowboy hat for the picture.

Kaenel fell under a horse in mid-June, suffering a compound fracture of his right leg that caused him to miss one of Brown Bess’ races. He got a doctor’s approval to ride in the Ramona, convincing Jenda that he had recovered by handling the mare in a couple of workouts.

After Brown Bess won by a neck, Kaenel went back to the hospital, to have a screw removed from his hip. He didn’t resume riding until 2 1/2 weeks later. Sore hip or not, Brown Bess was at Del Mar for a major race and for Kaenel that added up to a command performance.

Horse Racing Notes

The former record for the Yellow Ribbon was Queen To Conquer’s 1:58 3/5 clocking in 1981. . . . Brown Bess is named after the late Bessie Jenkins, who was a housekeeper for Suzanne Pashayan’s family. . . . Brown Bess is not expected to be retired, and might even make another local appearance this year, in the Matriarch at Hollywood Park.

The Oak Tree season closes today with a card that includes the Burke Handicap. One of the favorites in Alwuhush, a European horse whose only U.S. start was a third in the Man o’ War at Belmont Park on Sept. 23. . . . Hollywood Park opens Wednesday and the Hollywood Derby will be run next Sunday.