SANTA ANITA : Cenicola Survives Derby Fever Bout

There is no inoculation, and science has never found a cure. But trainer Lewis Cenicola has sweated through his first case of Kentucky Derby Fever and survived to tell the tale.

“That’s it, the fever is over for now,” Cenicola said after sending out longshot Assyrian Pirate to finish a dismal seventh in last Saturday’s Santa Anita Derby.

Assyrian Pirate, owned by John Elardi’s Southern Nevada Racing Stable, had shown a glimmer of promise earlier in the Santa Anita meeting. However, the local Derby was his second straight poor effort in stakes company, and Cenicola was making no excuses.

Before hanging his own shingle, Cenicola was an exercise rider and a well-traveled assistant trainer for Ron McAnally. Through the first half of the 1980s, he was a familiar sight each morning aboard two-time horse of the year John Henry. Cenicola would serenade the morning railbirds with a chorus of Stevie Wonder’s “You Are the Sunshine of My Life” as he rode “the grand old man” of racing out to the track.

Cenicola has plenty of action to fall back on while Assyrian Pirate regroups, beginning with Impossible Stream, perhaps the most consistent runner in Cenicola’s eclectic 18-horse stable. The Kentucky-bred chestnut goes today at Santa Anita in a $54,000 allowance race on the grass that could take a stakes-class effort to win.

A winner already at the meet, Impossible Stream is one of those blue-collar bulldogs who keeps owners in the business and trainers off the streets. It has been more than a year since the 5-year-old has missed a payday, during which time he has won four of 12 starts and earned more than $120,000.

When he came to California from New York in November 1988, however, Impossible Stream looked like a bad investment going downhill fast. Each start was more pathetic than the last. By the time he left the East Coast, he was running--and losing--in $35,000 claiming company.

“I guess he was a bad bleeder back there,” said Cenicola, who trains Impossible Stream for insurance underwriters David Ringler and Dave Hoffman. “That can have a bad effect, because a horse can get scared of running. They’re hurting inside, so they stop putting out.

It was a while before Cenicola could detect a semblance of class in Impossible Stream. After four races and four conclusive losses, the colt found himself surrounded by $16,000 claimers.

“The thing is, he was still training real good,” Cenicola said. “I decided he just might need another type of rider, somebody who would get after him early and make him run. Somebody like Martin Pedroza.”

Pedroza first teamed with Impossible Stream on March 31, 1989, in a race for $18,000 claimers. The result was too good to be coincidental.

For the first time since he had broken his maiden at Louisiana Downs in May 1988, Impossible Stream actually saw the lead. Pedroza hustled him to the front going down the backstretch, forced the pace to the eighth pole and ended up finishing second at odds of 53-1. The next time out he won, beating $20,000 claimers by two lengths.

At that point Cenicola was eager to run Impossible Stream on the grass, to give his breeding a chance to prove its worth. His sire, Try My Best, was England’s top 2-year-old of 1977 and a son of Northern Dancer. Impossible Stream’s dam is a daughter of Riverman, a French champion whose offspring have won innumerable grass races .

Of course, all that was on paper. In reality, Impossible Stream was nothing more than a rejuvenated claimer on a roll, and they don’t write turf races for $20,000 claimers. Cenicola bit the bullet, tossed Impossible Stream in against allowance horses on the grass at Hollywood Park and came away looking like the smartest guy in town. The colt won by two lengths.

“Between the turf, and getting the bleeding under control, he’s turned himself around,” Cenicola said. “And believe me, this horse tries hard every time he runs. He’s a cut below the best turf horses out here, but he doesn’t know it. What I’d give for about 10 just like him.’

Horse Racing Notes

Santa Anita will simulcast the third round of racing’s best road show, Bayakoa vs. Gorgeous, when they meet next Wednesday in the Apple Blossom Handicap at Oaklawn Park. . . . Corey Black has landed the mount on Strub Stakes runner-up Quiet American in a $150,000 Breeders’ Cup-sponsored race Saturday at Golden Gate Fields. Quiet American’s regular jockey, Chris McCarron, is committed to ride Opening Verse the same day in the $500,000 Oaklawn Park Handicap.