DEL MAR : Repriced Follows Owners’ Script

Leonard Lavin might have started believing in omens in 1972.

“I remember the day Convenience beat Typecast in the match race,” Lavin said Wednesday at Del Mar. “We had won a race earlier on the card. And the day Convenience won the Vanity that year (again beating Typecast), we’d won an earlier race, too.”

In 1972, Lavin and the late Fletcher Jones, the owner of Typecast, bet $100,000 apiece, and Hollywood Park sweetened the pot with $50,000 for a showdown between the two female stars. Lavin went home with the money after Convenience held off Typecast by a head before a crowd of 53,000.

Wednesday, as Del Mar opened its 52nd season, Lavin was running Good Potential in the third race.

On an overcast day when many favorites took a beating, Good Potential won by three-quarters of a length at 4-5. The power of the omen began to dance in Leonard Lavin’s head.

Lavin had two horses groomed for later races. The better one won, Repriced taking the first division of the Oceanside Stakes by six lengths to earn $40,312. Mistery Kid can have his day later. About 30 minutes after Repriced’s victory, Lavin’s 2-year-old colt made his debut and ran second in a $30,000 maiden race. Lavin’s omen theory may work only once a day.

Tom Proctor trains Good Potential, and he saddled Repriced for his father, Willard, who has been working for Lavin since the late 1960s. Willard Proctor trained Convenience.

A crowd of 26,144 came to Del Mar on opening day, including a range of personages such as Pete Rozelle, Jackie Cooper, Buzzie Bavasi, Tim Conway and Frankie Carle, and for those who could wait long enough, form finally established itself late in the day. Stark South, the winner of the second half of the Oceanside Stakes, was the 5-2 favorite.

The crowd was the largest for an opener since off-track betting came to Southern California in 1988.

Julio Garcia rode Repriced, who was allowed to lope along through early fractions of :24 1/5 and :48. “When I saw those, I couldn’t believe it,” Lavin said. “We were going to run off the pace, but nobody wanted the lead.”

Heavy Rain, at 15-1, finished second, 1 1/4 lengths ahead of 41-1 Nijinsky’s Prince, with River Traffic, the 5-2 favorite, fourth. Repriced’s time for the mile on grass was 1:35, and he paid $9.40 to win as the second betting choice.

Repriced, a 3-year-old Roberto-Feature Price colt, scored his third consecutive victory, after finishing fourth in his first start only three months ago. Repriced is one of the last of the late Roberto’s offspring.

“I remember Feature Price well,” Lavin said. “She went to her knees coming out of the gate a few years ago but still won on this very race track, breaking her maiden. But she was injured in the race and never ran again.”

Lavin had owned a breeding share in Roberto before the stallion’s death. He sold one of his Roberto offspring, Bellatto, for $900,000, and the horse ran third in the English Derby in 1987.

Garcia, winner of a division of the Oceanside last year with Mehmetori, was riding Repriced for the first time. “He came away running, and I just went on with him,” Garcia said.

Stark South, ridden by Corey Nakatani, won the other division of the Oceanside by 1 1/2 lengths over June’s Reward, with Warfield another length farther back in third place. Stark South ran slightly faster than Repriced, 1:34 4/5.

Stark South, who is leased by Patricia Elia, won his first American start for trainer John Russell at Santa Anita last March but couldn’t beat some of the country’s best 3-year-olds--Green Alligator, Whadjathink and Compelling Sound--in three stakes races. In winning two of four starts in Europe, Stark South also faced the best, finishing fifth at Newmarket to Generous, the horse that won the Epsom Derby and the Irish Derby.

“He bruised his feet on the Hollywood Park turf course,” Russell said, “so I decided to wait and run him here. Del Mar has the best turf course on the West Coast.”

Stark South raced in the middle of the eight-horse pack down the backstretch, then made his winning move at the sixteenth pole.

Nakatani had ridden Stark South once before, in the Will Rogers Handicap when the colt was second to Compelling Sound.

“The trainer told me he was really coming up to this race good, and he sure did run like it, didn’t he,” Nakatani said. “He kept digging in through the stretch.”

Chris McCarron rode June’s Reward. “At the head of the stretch, I thought we were going to win it,” McCarron said. “I thought I had Corey’s horse measured. But he had something left.”

Horse Racing Notes

Pat Valenzuela, who won the Del Mar riding title in 1986 and 1990, rode two of Wednesday’s winning longshots. The highest win payoff of the day was in the sixth race on Roan Shark, who returned $73.20 with Francisco Mena riding. . . . John Russell said that Stark South will probably return in the Del Mar Derby on Aug. 18.

Soviet Sojourn, a $14,000 yearling, heads the field Friday for the $75,000 Junior Miss Stakes for 2-year-old fillies. Others running are Wiched Wit, Spoiled Lady, Flycatcher, Full Time Friend and Unsaddled. Soviet Sojourn ran second to Fluttery Danseur in the Landaluce Stakes at Hollywood Park. . . . Valenzuela and Chris McCarron will ride out of town Saturday. Valenzuela has the assignment on Classy Woman in the Test Stakes at Saratoga and McCarron and Corporate Report will try to to beat Hansel in the Haskell at Monmouth Park.