SANTA ANITA : Derby Shakedown About to Begin

Sunday Silence, Winning Colors, Alysheba and Ferdinand were hardly household names as January dawned on their respective 3-year-old campaigns. But five months later, each one stood at the pinnacle of the racing world, draped with roses at Churchill Downs.

Indeed, the last four Kentucky Derby winners have come out of the Santa Anita winter racing season.

Now, dozens of local trainers and owners are spending countless hours daydreaming. They stare at their promising young horses and wonder, “Is this the one? Is this my Derby winner?”

The answer is usually an emphatic no . Delusions of Derby grandeur is an honored tradition in the racing game. Egos have been trashed and horses have been damaged in thankless pursuit of the Derby. But the recent Derby success of relatively unheralded California-based horses gives West Coast racetrackers a built-in reason to believe in miracles. Consider the trend:

On Jan. 1, 1986, Ferdinand had won only one of five starts and had finished third in the Hollywood Futurity.

On Jan. 1, 1987, Alysheba had won just one of seven starts and was third in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile.

On Jan. 1, 1988, Winning Colors had started twice and won twice, but she had yet to run in stakes company.

On Jan. 1, 1989, Sunday Silence had won one of three starts, but he would not make his first stakes appearance for another 2 1/2 months.

The shakedown of local 1990 Derby horses commences in earnest over the next three days. There is a key allowance race at Santa Anita today, followed by the San Miguel Stakes there on Friday and then the California Juvenile Stakes at Bay Meadows on Saturday. Several horses to watch could emerge from these events.

Today’s one-mile allowance race--the fifth race--matches Tsu’s Dawning, Assyrian Pirate and possibly Land Rush, who must draw in from the also-eligibles.

Tsu’s Dawning broke his maiden by 5 1/2 lengths with a 1:35 4/5-mile at Hollywood Park on Dec. 3 in one of the most impressive efforts of the meet. But even though Eddie Gregson was given a green light from the colt’s owners--Dave and Beth Whelan of Miami and the Henwood brothers of New Jersey--the trainer resisted the temptation to throw Tsu’s Dawning into the Dec. 17 Hollywood Futurity.

“You know old conservative Gregson,” the trainer said with a self-mocking grin. “First an allowance race. Then maybe a restricted stakes. He’s a nice colt and he’s got a chance to be a really good 3-year-old. It’s my intention to give him that chance.”

Gregson, who trained 1982 Kentucky Derby winner Gato del Sol, is not surprised that California racing has produced such a spate of recent Kentucky Derby winners. According to the trainer, there is no better place to give a young horse the seasoning he needs to withstand the pressure of Kentucky Derby Day.

“California is the only place a horse can experience crowds anywhere near the size of a Derby Day crowd,” Gregson said. “You can’t minimize what that circus can do to a young horse--people lining the rail on the the walk over from the barn, screaming at every horse as they go by. You can’t prepare for an ordeal like that in front of 15,000 people at Aqueduct.”

Trainer Lewis Cenicola also toyed with the idea of running Assyrian Pirate in the Hollywood Futurity, especially after the son of Pirate’s Bounty broke his maiden by four lengths going 1 1/16 miles at Hollywood Park on Nov. 26.

“Then I figured dropping back to a one-turn mile in the Futurity wouldn’t do him any good,” Cenicola said. “It would have been too much like a sprint for him, and he’s definitely no sprinter.

Neither Gregson nor Cenicola regrets passing up the Futurity. Chances are, they would have been added to the list of victims of Grand Canyon, who ran the fastest mile ever recorded by a 2-year-old (1:33). That performance made the son of Fappiano the future book Kentucky Derby favorite.

According to trainer Wayne Lukas, Grand Canyon probably will make his 3-year-old debut in the San Felipe Handicap at Santa Anita on March 18, and then run in the April 7 Santa Anita Derby.

“That gives us a month then before the Kentucky Derby,” said Lukas. “If we feel he needs a race in between time, we’ll have the option to go to places like the Arkansas Derby or the Blue Grass Stakes.”

Lukas is keeping Grand Canyon at his Santa Anita stable, where the colt is in light training.

“I don’t want to be more than 15 minutes away from this colt at any time if I can help it,” Lukas said. “We’ll start doing a little more with him about mid-January.”

Lukas will run a second-stringer, Top Cash, in the six-furlong San Miguel, a race that usually goes to a pure sprinter. Shantin O., Express It and One More Work fit the mold this time around. But Robyn Dancer and Tarascon may be the names heard later on.

“Tarascon acts like he wants to go a route,” said Dave Hofmans, his trainer. “I know he won twice sprinting, but everything about him says more distance. At least, that’s what I’m hoping.”

Robyn Dancer, now trained by Darrell Vienna, has traveled as much as any top 2-year-old in the country this year. He ran well at Laurel, Atlantic City, the Meadowlands and Pimlico before his poor showing in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Gulfstream Park, Nov. 4. Vienna took over after that race.

“He’d run very hard just two weeks prior to the Breeders’ Cup,” Vienna said, referring to Robyn Dancer’s narrow loss in the 1 1/16-mile Laurel Futurity. “But the fact that he was able to run his race on a number of surfaces indicates a certain amount of character and determination.”

With the San Miguel under his belt, Robyn Dancer could come right back on Jan. 10 in the Los Feliz Stakes at one mile, the first of eight local 3-year-old stakes leading up to the $500,000 Santa Anita Derby.

Horse Racing Notes

The $100,000 California Juvenile will be headed by Drag Race, who has not won since his upset victory in the Del Mar Futurity. The mile event will be simulcast to Santa Anita as the 10th race at the end of Saturday’s program. . . . Eddie Gregson says that Dave and Beth Whelan’s Candi’s Gold will make his comeback in the Jan. 13 San Carlos Handicap. . . . Tsu’s Dawning went through two different auctions and was bought back both times, first for $37,000 as a yearling and then for $60,000 last March in Florida. “We’re hoping this is a trend,” Beth Whelan said. “Both Sunday Silence and Hawkster were offered but not sold at auction, and you know what they went on to do.” . . . Pleasant Tap, who beat Grand Canyon in the Sunny Slope Stakes in October, will await the March 3 San Rafael Stakes to make his 3-year-old debut.