SANTA ANITA : Wayne Lukas Gets Pleasant Surprise

Trainer Wayne Lukas was the most surprised horseman in the Keeneland sales pavilion when Zenya Yoshida, the largest breeder in Japan, bought A Wild Ride for $525,000 less than two weeks ago.

Lukas, who had saddled A Wild Ride to win the El Encino at Santa Anita three days before, didn’t even know Yoshida would be bidding on the horse, and in fact the trainer had been trying to recruit other buyers before the Kentucky sale, hoping they would keep the 4-year-old filly in training.

After Yoshida bought A Wild Ride at the Calumet Farm auction, his son came up to Lukas with the signed sales slip and said: “My father would like for you to train this horse. Also, my father would like for a picture to be taken of you, him and the horse.”

Lukas is shooting for one more picture of A Wild Ride--in the winner’s circle at Santa Anita today, when she tries to beat the two horses that finished behind her in the El Encino and four other rivals in the $200,000 La Canada Stakes.

“It would be an extraordinary feat if she pulls it off,” Lukas said. “It was 72 hours from the time she left Santa Anita until the time she returned. She seems like the same horse. She’s been eating good, and I breezed her the other day (a half-mile in :50 1/5), so the trip to Kentucky doesn’t seem to have taken anything out of her.”

Highland Tide, who was second by a neck in the El Encino, bled in the race and will run with an anti-bleeder medication today. Also, Gary Stevens, who shares the season’s stakes victory lead with Chris McCarron, will replace Julio Garcia.

McCarron, who has won five stakes, will again be riding A Wild Ride.

The La Canada is 1 1/8 miles, a sixteenth of a mile farther than the El Encino, which may benefit Highland Tide and Somethingmerry, who finished third after making a run at A Wild Ride in the stretch of the shorter race.

Before A Wild Ride, Lukas had only a slight connection with Yoshida. The Japanese horseman had topped a Keeneland sale a few years ago when he paid $2.8 million for a Northern Dancer colt who had been consigned by C.N. Ray, a Lukas client. The expensive yearling raced in Europe for Yoshida, who is standing Sunday Silence, the 1989 horse of the year, at stud in Japan.

Lukas continued training another horse, Open Mind, for a Japanese investor after she was sold for $4.6 million at the Gene Klein dispersal sale in 1989.

“From what I can gather, the difference between Yoshida and the other Japanese who are getting into American racing is that racing and breeding are the only things Yoshida does,” Lukas said. “The others are involved in many businesses, one of which is horse racing. But with Yoshida, it’s strictly horses.”

By dropping charges against Blake Heap and apparently reducing the suspension of Caesar Dominguez, the California Horse Racing Board’s investigation into the latest series of positive cocaine tests is beginning to look like the embarrassing scandal of 1988-89, when all cases except the one involving Roger Stein were dismissed because of inconclusive evidence.

Heap, who saddled a thoroughbred that tested positive for cocaine at Los Alamitos in August, has been exonerated by the board after an independent analysis of the horse’s urine did not come up positive.

Dominguez, who ran a quarter horse that tested positive for cocaine at Los Alamitos last August, was given a year’s suspension and fined $5,000, but at a recent executive session, the racing board recommended reducing the penalty to six months, which means Dominguez could be reinstated soon.

The 13 other trainers who ran horses that tested positive for cocaine are scheduled to have hearings.

A racing board ruling regarding Heap said his case was being dropped “in the best interests of racing.”

Dominguez, whose horses earned about $1.5 million in 1989-90, has maintained his innocence. “I’ve been training 41 years,” Dominguez said, “and all I’ve had is two $200 fines for high (levels of) bute (phenylbutazone, a pain-killer that’s allowed in limited quantities). The level of cocaine that my horse had was barely detectable. They should have a limit for the drug, just like they do for bute.”

At its monthly meeting Friday, the racing board gave race tracks permission to offer trifecta betting in a trial period through June 30, 1992. The board’s action still needs to be approved by the state’s Office of Administrative Law, a process that could take two months.

In a trifecta, a bettor must pick the exact 1-2-3 finish of a single race. It is a type of bet that has been available for years in New York and other states.

Paul Deats was the only board member to oppose the trifecta. “I’m against it because of the history of the trifecta in the East,” Deats said. “The biggest race-fixing scandals have revolved around the trifecta.”

Horse Racing Notes

Henry Chavez was reelected chairman of the racing board, and William Lansdale was reelected vice chairman. . . . The harness season at Los Alamitos will begin on Feb. 8 and run through July 27, as the result of board action Friday. The quarter horses will run at Bay Meadows from May 17 through July 20 and at Los Alamitos from Aug. 20 through Dec. 24.

Undefeated Apollo will try for his fourth consecutive victory Sunday, facing 11 rivals in the $125,000 California Breeders’ Champion Stakes at seven furlongs. . . . The Mace Siegel family and trainer Brian Mayberry have won the Santa Anita feature two days in a row. Their winners were Forest Fealty Thursday and Exemplary Leader Friday.

One of the eight winning tickets in Wednesday’s pick six at Santa Anita that was worth $465,885 was purchased for $360. It was purchased at Canterbury Downs in Shakopee, Minn. The two local winners came on combinations that cost $480 and $4,526. The winner at Mountaineer Park in West Virginia came from a $1,344 ticket. The Nevada Gaming Commission doesn’t allow the amount paid for tickets for the four winners there to be revealed. One of the Nevada winning tickets was worth a total of $1,073,543 including consolation payoffs for five winners. Another was worth $547,660.