SANTA ANITA : Trainer Develops Taste for Stakes

It didn’t take long for Paco Gonzalez to pick up his second stakes victory.

Seven days after Mane Minister gave the former assistant to the late Joe Manzi his first added-money success as a trainer in the Santa Catalina, favored Nice Assay held off Assombrie to take the $83,025 Santa Ysabel Stakes Wednesday at Santa Anita.

Well placed early by Laffit Pincay, the 3-year-old Clever Trick filly took the lead approaching the stretch, opened up a 2 1/2-length margin, then defeated 9-1 shot Assombrie by a length in 1:43 3/5 for the 1 1/16 miles.

“I waited a long time to get my first stakes win, and now I get another one,” Gonzalez said. “For a long time, I was second, second, second. This could be my whole year, but I hope not.

“There’s a race in San Francisco for Nice Assay or I could keep her here and run (in the Las Virgenes on Feb. 24) against good fillies. I think she can run with Garden Gal. I think she really needed her last race (a second to Garden Gal in the La Centinela). She got sick before the race and maybe she just needed time.”

The victory was the third in 10 starts for Nice Assay, who is owned by Trudy McCaffery and John Toffan, who also have Mane Minister. Nice Assay has only been off the board twice.

“If you want to take her back and make one run, she won’t run for you, so you have to keep in contact with the leaders,” Pincay said. “She broke real sharp, and I was able to lay just off the speed.

“She’s getting better. Last time, she pulled herself up completely when she made the lead. This time, she made the lead and kept going. She started to wait a little bit.”

Assombrie, who was making her first start on dirt, was almost two lengths ahead of Ms. Aerosmith; then came Apreciada, Aurora Winners, Present Moment, Secret Imperatrice, Urban Gypsy and On Final. Boots, Island Shuffle and Ragtimer were Santa Ysabel scratches.

The places of Natural Splendor, Chief Artist and Dandini in Santa Anita history could be in danger.

With six victories each, they share the record for most wins in a Santa Anita meeting, but Cobra Classic is on a pace to outdo them.

Cobra Classic, a 4-year-old gelded son of Graustrak, already has four victories on the Arcadia track, and the halfway point of the season is still two weeks away.

Trained by Bill Spawr, Santa Anita’s leading trainer with 16 victories in 37 starts, Cobra Classic won an allowance race on opening day, Dec. 26. Two weeks later, he took a $32,000 claimer, then stepped up and won for $40,000 on Jan. 24.

Moved back into the allowance ranks last Sunday, he clicked again under regular rider Pincay. His quest for a fifth straight victory will have to wait. “He’s going to get a rest,” said Spawr, suggesting that Cobra Classic won’t be seen for about three weeks.

This isn’t to say owner Carlton Sell’s money machine is worn out from all of his activity. “He loves it,” Spawr said. “He’s a real hearty horse. He’s tough and he’s getting better.”

A winner of his last five starts at Santa Anita, Cobra Classic was under Spawr’s care last summer. He was claimed for $25,000 by trainer Mel Stute out of a three-length victory on Aug. 9 at Del Mar. “He ran huge that day, and I didn’t think anybody was going to take him,” Spawr remembered.

The next time Cobra Classic was entered for a price tag--$32,000 on Oct. 19--Spawr claimed him back, and the horse has only lost once since. That was in a turf race, and he’s certainly shown he has no love for that surface. He has finished seventh, sixth and seventh in three tries on the grass. “I tried to run him on the dirt at Hollywood Park, but none of the races went,” he said. “I ran him on the grass to get a race into him.

“I’ve always liked him, but he was very green,” Spawr said. “He still doesn’t change leads. Laffit has come by the barn and we’ve worked with him, and he’s better about doing it in the morning.

“But it’s different in the afternoon. It seems like he gets his momentum going and he doesn’t concentrate on changing leads. We’ll leave it alone right now. Like they say, if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it.”

A field of eight is possible for Sunday’s $500,000 Charles H. Strub Stakes, headed by San Fernando winner In Excess.

Very impressive in his main track debut on Jan. 19, In Excess figures to be the favorite for the 1 1/4-mile Strub, in which he’ll face many of the same opponents--Wacraft, Pleasant Tap, Bedeviled, My Boy Adam and Defensive Play--he defeated. Video Ranger and Greydar would be the newcomers.

“We haven’t done much with him since the last race,” trainer Bruce Jackson said of In Excess, who worked four furlongs in 49 seconds Tuesday. “He breezed five furlongs once and then this half-mile. You hammer works into him and he gets excited and doesn’t relax well.”

Horse Racing Notes

Santa Anita stewards Pete Pedersen, Tom Ward and Hubert Jones plan to meet with trainer John Dolan after Norms Delight’s victory in Wednesday’s second race. A 3-year-old Beau’s Eagle filly making the first start of her life in the $32,000 claiming race, Norms Delight, 30-1 on the morning line, was bet down to 7-1 and was a comfortable wire-to-wire winner. She had only two lackluster works, a 51 2/5 half-mile in the mud on Jan. 8 at Hollywood Park followed by a 1:03 3/5 five furlongs on Jan. 19, showing in the Daily Racing Form, so she had to work again Wednesday morning, going three furlongs in 38 3/5 at Hollywood, to get the start. “We’ll not only talk to him (Dolan), but the clockers as well,” Pedersen said.

Damazar, the favorite in Wednesday’s fifth race, suffered a compound fracture of the cannon bone in his right foreleg and was destroyed. . . . Nice Assay paid $4 to win and earned $49,275 for her owners. . . . Corey Black and Chris McCarron each won twice Wednesday.

Unbeaten in two starts, Dinard will make his next appearance in Sunday’s $100,000 San Vicente Breeders’ Cup Stakes at seven furlongs. A 3-year-old son of Strawberry Road, Dinard worked five furlongs in :58 3/5 Tuesday morning, and his probable San Vicente foes are Scan, Olympio, Keen Line, Distinctly North and Roman Envoy.