SANTA ANITA : General Meeting May Miss Beam

General Meeting, one of several promising Kentucky Derby candidates from California, will probably miss next Saturday’s $500,000 Jim Beam Stakes at Turfway Park because of a slight fever.

General Meeting, scheduled to be on a plane that would take him and Apollo to Kentucky on Saturday, didn’t make the flight.

“He worked (seven furlongs) in 1:25 Friday morning,” trainer David Hofmans said. “He came out of the work all right, but then at feeding time we found that he had a temperature. It wasn’t very high, but it was enough that we didn’t want to take a chance on sending him to Kentucky.”

General Meeting, owned by John and Betty Mabee of San Diego, is the second of their three top 3-year-olds to have problems this winter. The Mabees’ Avenue of Flags re-injured a knee during training a few weeks ago and won’t make the Kentucky Derby.

The Mabees also own Best Pal, last year’s California horse of the year, who is scheduled to run in the Santa Anita Derby April 6.

General Meeting was scheduled to leave Santa Anita because of the Mabees’ plan to separate their horses as they run in Kentucky Derby preps.

“There’s still an outside chance that we might send him to Turfway in a few days, but I doubt it,” Hofmans said. He said that another option for General Meeting is the Arkansas Derby at Oaklawn Park April 20.

In five starts, General Meeting has never run a bad race. He won his first start, at Santa Anita in October, then was immediately moved into stakes company for a third-place finish at Hollywood Park. He finished second to his stablemate, Best Pal, in the Hollywood Futurity in December. As a 3-year-old, he ran second to Sea Cadet while bleeding from the lungs in the El Camino Real Derby at Bay Meadows. Treated with Lasix a month later, General Meeting won the Bradbury at Santa Anita by a head over Doc Of The Day.

“Missing this race (the Jim Beam) makes for a tighter schedule,” Hofmans said. “But we didn’t plan to run him that many times, because you want to have a fresh horse for the Kentucky Derby. I’m just glad I got that 1 1/8-mile race (the Bradbury) into him before this happened.”

The main stake at Santa Anita Saturday was the $83,400 Las Cienegas down the hill for fillies and mares, but there was probably more interest in Golden Gate Fields’ $200,000 San Francisco Mile, which could be bet and watched on television at the Arcadia track.

Itsallgreektome, last year’s champion male turf horse, made his debut on a soft course in the rain at Golden Gate, and finished fourth in the six-horse field. The race went to Forty Niner Days, who fought off Exbourne down the stretch to win by a neck. Blaze O’Brien finished third, 1 1/2 lengths back of Forty Niner Days and a neck better than Itsallgreektome, who under high weight of 124 pounds was last until he put in a mild run through the stretch.

Robbie Davis, who was scheduled to ride Forty Niner Days for trainer Roger Stein, called in sick Saturday morning to the stewards at Santa Anita, where he was also named on horses. One of Davis’ scheduled mounts at Santa Anita also won.

Tim Doocy substituted on Forty Niner Days, shot the gray 4-year-old to the front and then whipped him furiously the last sixteenth of a mile after Exbourne and Gary Stevens had drawn even in mid-stretch.

The last time Forty Niner Days ran at Golden Gate, he finished 12th and last in last year’s California Derby, but he is a different horse now. Stein had the son of Conquistador Cielo gelded after his last race, a fifth-place finish in the Budweiser Breeders’ Cup Handicap at Turf Paradise Feb. 10.

Forty Niner Days, making his third turf start, was timed in 1:38 4/5 and paid $29.40 to win at Golden Gate, $30.80 at Santa Anita.

Itsallgreektome made his first start since winning the Hollywood Turf Cup more than three months ago. “It was too hard to make up ground,” said his jockey, Corey Nakatani. “It was just too soft for him. I knew right away that the speed wasn’t going to come back, because the course was so soft. But that’s the breaks. He ran good and he’ll be double tough next time.”

Flower Girl, running on Lasix after bleeding in her last race, overcame a shaky start to win the 6 1/2-furlong Las Cienegas by one length over Mahaska.

Favored by the crowd of 28,420, Flower Girl paid $6.40, overtaking Mahaska inside the sixteenth pole. Survive finished third, beaten by 2 1/2 lengths.

Flower Girl, owned by Englishman William J. Gredley and trained by Hector Palma, finished third in the Monrovia Handicap, her only other American start, Feb. 13. Her time was 1:13 1/5.

“We got left at the gate,” jockey Eddie Delahoussaye said. “I was yelling, ‘No!’ (to the starter), and she took a step back when the gate opened. Then the sand was hitting her in the face and she started climbing. She’s the kind of filly who likes to run off, but once I got her back of horses, she relaxed.”