BREEDERS’ CUP : It May Be a Different Day Saturday

Trainer Jim Day is going to keep trying the Breeders’ Cup until he gets it right. And this time, he might just get it right with the same horses that failed him a year ago.

When the seven races, worth $10 million, are run at Churchill Downs Saturday, Day will be carrying the Canadian flag in two, running the power-packed entry of Dance Smartly and Wilderness Song in the $1-million Distaff, and starting Sky Classic, the moderate morning-line favorite at 5-2 in the $2-million Turf.

These are the same three horses that Day had in the Breeders’ Cup last year at Belmont Park. In a strange development, Dance Smartly, ridden by Sandy Hawley, and Wilderness Song, under Brian Swatuk, exhausted each other by battling for the lead in the early stages of the Juvenile Fillies. Dance Smartly hung on for third place in the race won by Meadow Star, and Wildnerness Song was a hangdog eighth, the worst finish in a career marked by eight victories, five seconds and a third in 16 starts.

Sky Classic did even worse. He tried to contest the pace in the 1 1/2-mile Turf and was last in an 11-horse field at the finish. This year, Sky Classic has had the services of Pat Day--the American rider who is not related to the trainer--in most of his starts, and he goes into action Saturday with a six-race winning streak, including the Rothmans International at Woodbine two weeks ago.

Pat Day, who has won five Breeders’ Cup races, one fewer than the leader, Laffit Pincay, will ride Dance Smartly, and Francine Villeneuve has been hired to ride Wilderness Song, joining Julie Krone as the only women riding Saturday. Krone’s mount is Preach, the 3-1 favorite in the Juvenile Fillies.

Canadian jockeys have been bitter about Pat Day crossing the border and riding their premium homegrown horses. Jim Day doesn’t care; he will apologize all the way to the bank.

“Some of our riders are unhappy because I use Pat,” Jim Day said. “But it’s the same in other sports in Canada, too. There was resentment among the Toronto Argos (of the Canadian Football League) when the team signed Rocket Ismail (out of Notre Dame) and paid him a lot of money.”

Dance Smartly is the centerpiece of Jim Day’s Breeders’ Cup trio. The 3-year-old filly has won all seven starts this year, improving her record to 10 victories, a second and a third in 12 starts. She has beaten colts in her last four races and has swept Canada’s Triple Crown. If she wins the Distaff, her earnings will surpass $3 million, breaking the North American record for a female held by Lady’s Secret.

Despite her accomplishments, Dance Smartly still comes here with a familiar stigma, as a Canadian-bred who has raced almost exclusively in Canada. Her last foreign start was also her last defeat, in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies.

Jim Day does not go on the defensive when Dance Smartly’s record is questioned. He seems surprised when it is suggested that she might become horse of the year if she runs first in the Distaff.

In the Daily Racing Form, an asterisk next to horses’ names means they excel as mud runners, but Dance Smartly deserves one to denote her all-Canada races.

“It’s a very fair comment,” said Day, 45, a former rider in the Olympic equestrian events who helped win gold medals for Canada in the 1968 Games at Mexico City. “People say that Dance Smartly is a nice horse, but she’s run her races in Canada. They say that they want to appraise her after the Breeders’ Cup. I can understand that. Canada is a small country, we have a small population and we have a small number of horses compared to some other countries.”

Day actually has had eight unsuccessful starters in the Breeders’ Cup. In the $3-million Classic at Aqueduct in 1985, he ran Imperial Choice, who at 26-1 was the longest price in the field. Day replaced Irwin Driedger, a top Canadian rider, with the Californian, Pincay, and at the quarter pole it looked as though Pincay had a winner when Imperial Choice took the lead with a sweeping move from the outside.

Imperial Choice, a 3-year-old gelding, had never run a bad race in 12 starts, but his legs were suspect. “He wasn’t a sound horse,” Day said. “Every race we got out of him we took as a bonus.”

The final 460 yards of the Classic were too much for Imperial Choice. He broke a cannon bone in a lower leg while managing to finish sixth, and his running career was over. Proud Truth, who rallied from last place, won the race.

“(The injury) may have come from the pressure of facing all those good horses,” Day said. “My horse might not have had the ability to handle it.”

Which is another way of saying, in race track parlance, that Imperial Choice, the good Canadian runner, was in too deep. The English, the Irish, the French and even the Argentines have won some of the previous 49 Breeders’ Cup races, but a Canadian-bred has never won.

Wilderness Song probably will not run Saturday if the track is fast. But Dance Smartly will be there either way, and she may be enough to keep Jim Day’s Canadian flag in the breeze.

Horse Racing Notes

The Distaff is not deep in talent, but in Versailles Treaty and Queena, trainer Shug McGaughey has a good chance to knock off Dance Smartly, who with Wilderness Song is even-money on the morning line. Because the McGaughey horses have different owners, they are not coupled in the betting; Versailles Treaty is 7-2 and Queena 5-1. Queena began her career as a sprinter, and despite her five consecutive victories, the 1 1/8-mile distance is a question mark. Versailles Treaty had won four in a row before Sharp Dance nosed her out in the Beldame on Oct. 6. Sharp Dance is not running Saturday because of the $240,000 supplementary fee that would have been required.

An update on Breeders’ Cup weather: There was no rain Thursday, but thunderstorms are forecast for today, with a chance of a partly sunny day Saturday and temperatures near 60 degrees. . . . Of the 91 horses running, 21 are foreign, and for the first time, Europeans are entered in all seven races.