HORSE RACING : This Year, ‘Money List’ May Count

Fairly soon, the Daily Racing Form will begin publishing lists of the top money winners that may run in the Kentucky Derby, and horsemen around the country will read, swallow and memorize each list until an update is printed.

The Derby is limited to 20 starters. If more than that number are possible entries, Churchill Downs determines the field, choosing according to money won in important races.

In recent years, the money list has been much ado about nothing. Not since 1984 has there been a 20-horse field for the Derby. The average field in the last five years has been 15 horses, the number that ran last year.

This year, however, horsemen may be able to study the money lists in earnest. There is no solid favorite for the Derby yet, and unless some 3-year-old starts stringing victories together in a hurry, a lot of trainers will think they have horses that belong in the eighth race at Churchill Downs on May 5.

The Santa Anita Derby and the Florida Derby are major preps for the Kentucky Derby, and Saturday at Santa Anita and at Gulfstream Park, there are preps for those preps.

And the turnouts for the San Rafael Stakes at Santa Anita and the Fountain of Youth at Gulfstream are indicative of how unsettled the 3-year-old picture is. At Santa Anita, 12 horses are entered, the largest field for the San Rafael since it was first run in 1981. The Fountain of Youth has drawn 13 starters, including some of the best colts training in Florida.

In the one-mile San Rafael, undefeated Mister Frisky will try to win his 15th consecutive race. Mister Frisky won his first 13 starts in Puerto Rico before being turned over to trainer Laz Barrera. Three weeks ago, in his first start for Barrera, Mister Frisky scored a length victory over favored Tarascon in the seven-furlong San Vicente.

Tarascon, who had won four of his previous five starts, is also entered in the San Rafael. The field, in post-position order, has: Balla Cove, Kept His Cool, Tarascon, Individualist, Land Rush, Drag Race, Iam the Iceman, Express It, Mister Frisky, Tight Spot, Future Career and Testtube Tommy.

Gary Stevens, who has won the last two San Rafaels, with What a Diplomat and Music Merci, rides Mister Frisky.

Slavic, already a winner at 1 1/16 miles this winter at Gulfstream after having finished third there in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile last November, is a 3-1 favorite and has drawn the rail in the 1 1/8-mile Fountain of Youth. Also running is Rhythm, winner of the Breeders’ Cup and the juvenile champion, but a sorry seventh in the Hutcheson last month.

Yonder, who made up almost 20 lengths in finishing second, three behind Housebuster in the Hutcheson, is another Fountain of Youth threat. Here’s the field: Slavic, Stayaway Frommydoor, Run Turn, Sunny Serve, Unbridled, Rhythm, Yonder, Smelly, Top Snob, Shot Gun Scott, Wolf Spy, Roanoke and Ross’s Warning.

Jose Santos, who led the nation in purses for four consecutive years and is off to a good start this year, could have a productive, trans-continental weekend. He rides Slavic in the Fountain of Youth and will be at Santa Anita on Sunday to ride Steinlen in the $100,000 Arcadia Handicap, a mile turf race.

Santos’ mounts have earned more than $52 million in the last four years, yet he has won only one Eclipse Award, having twice been outpolled by Pat Day and losing out last year to Kent Desormeaux. A jockey hasn’t dominated the money list as Santos has since Laffit Pincay, who won five consecutive titles starting in 1970.

Bayakoa isn’t the only horse who will be helped by an off track if the $1-million Santa Anita Handicap comes up mud on Sunday.

Flying Continental has sore legs and softer tracks agree with him. Flying Continental won the Santa Catalina in the mud when he was a 3-year-old, and this year has won the San Fernando and the Strub on off tracks.

Another good mud horse is Present Value, and Quiet American, running in the slop for the first time, lost by only a half-length to Flying Continental in the Strub.

When the Strub winner also wins the Santa Anita Handicap, he is frequently an extraordinary horse. Horses that have scored recent Strub-Big ‘Cap doubles are Alysheba in 1988, Spectacular Bid in 1980, and Affirmed in 1979.

Others winning both races have been Mark-Ye-Well in 1953, Round Table in 1958, Prove It in 1961, and Stardust Mel in 1975.

After Saros Brig had won the Buena Vista Handicap for trainer Dominic Manzi at Santa Anita last Sunday, Manzi recalled how it had been to learn the game under his father Joe, who died of a heart attack about a year ago.

“I worked for him for 17 years, and he was an excellent teacher,” Manzi said. “But I think he was a lot harder on me. He expected more, and he demanded perfection.”

Manzi, 31, recalled that his father fired him at least twice.

“That was when I was in my teens, and early 20s,” Manzi said. “I’d be gone for three or four days, and then he’d let me come back.”

During one of these flare-ups, young Manzi went to New York and watched the 1975 match race in which Foolish Pleasure beat Ruffian, who broke down after the start and died on an operating table.

“I knew I’d be coming back,” Manzi said. “Because I had made up my mind that this was the business I wanted to be in.”

Whenever anyone asked Hal King how many horses he was training, the stock answer was, “Too many.”

King, 71, won’t have that problem anymore, because he has announced his retirement. The last horse he saddled, Jenny’s Weigh, finished fifth Thursday at Santa Anita.

King will be returning to Mexico to run several weight-reducing centers owned by Jenny Craig, one of his racing clients. It was in Mexico City that King, a native New Yorker, met Laz Barrera and they remained close friends after winding up in California.

King, who was in the dance-school business before getting into racing, trained mostly claiming horses, but he won the first running of the San Rafael Stakes in 1981 with Johnlee n’ Harold. In 1984, one of King’s horses, Natural Splendor, tied a Santa Anita record by winning six races.

Horse Racing Notes

Waiting for Red Ransom is a lot like waiting for Godot, the Samuel Beckett detective who never arrived. More has been written about Red Ransom for doing less than any 3-year-old in the country. The undefeated colt has run only twice, and not at all since last August. The son of Roberto and grandson of Damascus is scheduled to run seven furlongs Saturday at Gulfstream, the same track where he was scratched from a race last week because of an excessively fast workout. Trainer Mack Miller’s style is not to run horses in the Kentucky Derby, and it’s doubtful that he’ll be at Churchill Downs with Red Ransom. This is a horse that has the Belmont and the Travers written all over him.

Steinlen carries 126 pounds and Prized 124 Sunday in the Arcadia Handicap. Neither horse has run since the Breeders’ Cup, when Prized won the Turf Stakes and Steinlen won the Mile. This will be the first time, other than in a Breeders’ Cup, that Breeders’ Cup winners have met in the same race. . . . The most famous horse to run in the San Rafael was Ferdinand, who finished second to Variety Road in 1986 but won the Kentucky Derby six weeks later.