SANTA ANITA : Steinlen, After Skipping Legend’s Last Ride, Faces Prized in Arcadia Handicap Sunday

Trainer Wayne Lukas wanted to run Steinlen in the Legend’s Last Ride Handicap at Santa Anita on Feb. 3, but he was overruled by the owners of the 7-year-old English-bred.

The Legend’s Last Ride was Bill Shoemaker’s final race, and Daniel Wildenstein and his family didn’t want their horse to be the one that might beat Shoemaker in his farewell appearance.

“These people are real purists,” Lukas said.

Lukas gave the Wildensteins another option.

“Let’s give the mount to Shoemaker,” he said. “That way, he’ll have the favorite in the race. It could be a real Hollywood ending.”

The Wildensteins also rejected that idea. They pointed out that Jose Santos had ridden Steinlen in his last four wins, including the Arlington Million and the Breeders’ Cup Mile, and they wanted him to keep the mount.

“They’re very loyal, too,” Lukas said.

Wildenstein, an international art dealer who lives in Paris, probably wouldn’t have been able to handle the reaction had Steinlen, instead of Exemplary Leader, been the horse that beat Shoemaker in his last race. Exemplary Leader was ridden by Eddie Delahoussaye, who was irked that he was roundly booed for his efforts.

Shoemaker finished fourth on Patchy Groundfog, and both that horse and Exemplary Leader will be running Sunday at Santa Anita in the $100,000 Arcadia Handicap. They will be joined by Steinlen, last year’s national male grass champion, and Prized, horses running for the first time since winning Breeders’ Cup races at Gulfstream Park last November. Prized, who had never run on grass, won the Breeders’ Cup Turf at 1 1/2 miles.

The $1-million Santa Anita Handicap is the big race Sunday, but because of Steinlen and Prized, the one-mile Arcadia on the grass is almost as intriguing. Here’s the lineup, in post-position order:

Silent Prince, Prized, Summer Sale, Rambo’s Hall, Patchy Groundfog, On the Menu, Exemplary Leader, Steinlen, Shining Steel and Happy Toss.

Steinlen will carry high weight of 126 pounds, Prized has been assigned 124 and the others carry 118 pounds or less.

Steinlen was one of last year’s most consistent horses, winning seven races, with three seconds and a third, in 11 starts, and earning $1.5-million. In his three seconds, he was beaten by a length or less, and he lost by 1 1/2 lengths on the day he ran third.

Lukas envisions a similar campaign this year, which means races at Hollywood Park in the early summer and another try at the Arlington Million and the Breeders’ Cup.

Lukas figures he has a chance to sweep the stakes this weekend. Besides Steinlen, he’s running Land Rush, the stable’s best 3-year-old colt, in today’s San Rafael, and Criminal Type in the Santa Anita Handicap.

“Very little is ever said about Criminal Type, and he hardly ever goes off the favorite, but he gets the job done,” Lukas said. “The horse has really blossomed.”

Criminal Type was 4-1 while winning the San Antonio Handicap and beating Ruhlmann, Present Value and Stylish Winner, three other starters in the Big ‘Cap. The race before that, the 5-year-old son of Alydar went off at 7-1 in winning the San Pasqual Handicap.

As for Land Rush, Lukas said that if he had the choice of picking any Kentucky Derby candidate in the country, this would be the horse.

“At this point, both here and in Florida, I don’t think anybody--including the guys that train the horses--knows how the Derby picture will turn out,” Lukas said. “He’s got the pedigree, he’s got tactical speed and he’s a sound horse. Even when we still had Grand Canyon, we knew this was a quality colt.”

Grand Canyon was the winter-book favorite for the Kentucky Derby when he was sidelined with a knee injury early last month and will be out for a minimum of four months.

Lukas would have preferred a longer race for Land Rush than the one-mile San Rafael, but he said he would have had to leave town to find one.

A spill on the Santa Anita grass course Friday morning made several veteran horsemen cringe.

Sharazari, an Irish-bred 5-year-old, broke down in the stretch and unseated his rider, Rafael Meza. Sharazari suffered a broken right foreleg and had to be destroyed; Meza suffered a broken bone in his right hand and is expected to be sidelined for at least four weeks.

Horse Racing Notes

Trainer Eddie Gregson is an unhappy winner. Although his promising 3-year-old colt, Tsu’s Dawning, won the Bradbury Stakes last Wednesday, Gregson said the horse labored over the Santa Anita track. “He didn’t like it the time before when he got beat, and he still didn’t like it,” Gregson said. “They dug up the track about a month ago, and now it’s ridiculous. I know they’re trying to shake that California image of hard tracks, but this isn’t the answer, either. You’ve got to change your entire training style with horses in the morning, because running over this surface takes so much out of them. It’s like running on the beach in wet sand. By the time a horse gets to a race, he’s already leg weary.” . . . Barry Irwin, who manages the Clover Racing Stable, says that Prized is running on grass instead of in the Santa Anita Handicap because he and his partners are unhappy with the dirt track.

Clover, which won the Big ‘Cap last year with Martial Law, has bought Citidancer, a 3-year-old colt who won by 12 lengths at Laurel in his only start. Citidancer, a son of Dixieland Band, cost $600,000 and has been turned over to trainer Neil Drysdale at Hollywood Park. He will be sent to Kentucky soon for a prep race before the Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland.