Pacific Classic’s Field Is Expected to Eclipse Best in Del Mar History : Horse racing: Today’s winner probably will be the leading candidate for horse of the year.

Calling today’s $1-million Pacific Classic the best race in Del Mar history won’t spur arguments that Seabiscuit vs. Ligaroti was better.

As a signature race for a track, Seabiscuit-Ligaroti wasn’t shabby. Seabiscuit beat his South American rival by a nose in 1938, Del Mar’s second year, with jockeys George Woolf and Spec Richardson committing battery against each other through the stretch, but that was a match race.

The Pacific Classic is stocked with eight starters, and a case can be made for all of them except Stalwart Charger--who is overmatched, even though he had his finest hour over this course last summer. Anshan would normally be discounted, too, because the English-bred colt is one for six on dirt, but he is trained by Charlie Whittingham. Whittingham has won more million-dollar races than anybody but Wayne Lukas.

The remaining six are accomplished runners, a couple of them already are champions and the others are Eclipse Award contenders. The winner probably will become horse of the year in-waiting for 1991. The field, which has won almost 60 races and earned $11.3 million, includes a Kentucky Derby and Breeders’ Cup Classic winner, Unbridled; an Eclipse grass champion, Itsallgreektome; one of the country’s best 3-year-olds, Best Pal; a star-in-waiting, Twilight Agenda, and Farma Way and Festin, whose rivalry has stretched from California to New York and now back again.

Lukas, who has won 16 $1-million races to Whittingham’s nine, is taking two shots in the Classic. His Twilight Agenda extended his winning streak to three in the San Diego Handicap here two weeks ago and Farma Way will race after a six-week layoff, his longest rest between races this year.

“Farma Way’s last race (second by a head to Marquetry in the Hollywood Gold Cup) was a great effort,” Lukas said.

“He shipped across the country after that tough race in New York (third to Festin in the Nassau County Handicap), gave the other horse (Marquetry) 12 pounds and still almost beat him. Now he’s had an excellent series of workouts leading up to this race. As for Twilight Agenda, he’s very good right now.”

The Pacific Classic might also answer some or all of these questions:

--Does Farma Way, who has run eight tough races--and won five--at Santa Anita, Oaklawn Park, Pimlico, Belmont Park and Hollywood Park, have another solid performance left?

--In Twilight Agenda, does Lukas have a runner with the potential of Criminal Type, another European horse who earned North American horse-of-the-year honors a year ago?

--Can Festin and Unbridled allow Lukas’ horses to open a big lead and still catch them in Del Mar’s short stretch?

--Can Unbridled, shipping to California after winning an allowance race at Arlington International only a week ago, win his first important stake since last year?

--Will the home-track and weight advantages enable Best Pal to overpower his older opponents?

--Can Itsallgreektome, who has won one of six starts on dirt, transfer his grass prowess to the main track?

The toughest assignment goes to Unbridled, the champion 3-year-old colt of 1990 who has had physical problems this year. Along with Best Pal, he is no better than the co-fifth choice on the morning line at 6-1. Farma Way is the 2-1 favorite, followed by Festin at 7-2, Itsallgreektome at 9-2 and Twilight Agenda at 5-1. Anshan and Stalwart Charger are the outsiders at 15-1 and 30-1, respectively.

The start of Unbridled’s campaign was delayed because of a bruised hoof in Florida, but once trainer Carl Nafzger got him healthy, he whipped Housebuster, the standout sprinter, with a late surge at Gulfstream Park.

Unbridled’s fifth-place finish in the Oaklawn Handicap came on an off track, and then he bled badly from the lungs while beating only one horse in the Pimlico Special.

After Pimlico, Nafzger said Unbridled, who has run with Lasix, the bleeders’ medication, would not run for him again if there was more bleeding. Last Saturday, Unbridled raced for the first time in almost three months and ran seven furlongs in a fast 1:21.

Bringing a horse cross-country after such little seasoning to face a first-class field does not fit Nafzger’s style.

“We’ve been thinking about this race for a month,” Nafzger said. “I don’t have a problem with him going from seven-eighths of a mile to a mile and a quarter. He’s run before at this distance.”

But not since last October, when Unbridled won the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Belmont Park. His Kentucky Derby victory was also at 1 1/4 miles.

Unbridled earned a $1-million Triple Crown bonus last year, and with eight victories, five seconds and four thirds in 21 races, the 4-year-old son of Fappiano is $42,005 short of the $4-million mark. Finishing in the top four would put him over that threshold, which has been crossed by only six horses--Alysheba, John Henry, Sunday Silence, Easy Goer, Spend A Buck and Creme Fraiche. Alysheba tops the list with $6.6 million.

The other millionaires in today’s field are Farma Way, $1.9 million; Best Pal, $1.4 million; Itsallgreektome, $1.2 million, and Festin, $1.2 million.

At the bottom of the Classic’s earnings list is Twilight Agenda, with $282,909. He could win nearly twice that amount today.

Horse Racing Notes

The Pacific Classic will be the first stake at 1 1/4 miles at Del Mar since 1950. For several years, the Del Mar Handicap was run at a distance slightly short of 1 1/4 miles. For the Classic, Del Mar has installed a second finish line, 87 feet past the existing line. Second finish lines, such as the one that Hollywood Park once had, can give jockeys trouble. Del Mar ran two races at 1 1/4 miles in the last two days to give riders the chance to familiarize themselves with the second line. “I’m going to tell my jockey to ride out to the seven-eighths pole, just to make sure,” joked Gary Jones, trainer of Best Pal. Said Corey Nakatani, who will ride Itsallgreektome: “If a rider doesn’t know where the finish line is, he doesn’t belong in the race.”

Post time for the first race today is 1 p.m., with the Classic the third race. . . . All of the starters will carry 124 pounds except Best Pal, who will carry 116 because he is only a 3-year-old. . . . Gary Stevens and Laffit Pincay will be at Los Alamitos tonight to ride in the Orange County Derby. . . . Because of rain at Saratoga, Meadow Star has been scratched from today’s Alabama Stakes. . . . Stormy But Valid, the stakes-winning mare, has been retired. . . . Former jockey Ralph Neves, 75, has suffered a second heart attack and is in San Marcos for bypass surgery.

Tight Spot, who has won six consecutive races, all on grass, is the high weight at 125 pounds for Sunday’s $300,000 Eddie Read Handicap, a 1 1/8-mile turf stake, at Del Mar. Also running is Algenib, an Argentine-bred who won at 1 1/16 miles at Hollywood Park a month ago in his American debut. The Read lineup, with jockeys and weights, in post-position order: Val Des Bois, Chris McCarron, 115 pounds; Algenib, Nakatani, 120; Reinstate, Stevens, 115; Madejaristan, Kent Desormeaux, 116; Raj Waki, Adalberto Lopez, 116; Great Commotion, Eddie Delahoussaye, 115, and Tight Spot, Pincay, 125.