SANTA ANITA : Twilight Agenda Faces Weighty Test in Today’s Running of San Pasqual

Farma Way is gone, off to a career at stud, but trainer Wayne Lukas still has Twilight Agenda, who by the end of last year was winning more often than his better-known stablemate.

Despite winning a $750,000 bonus in the American Championship Racing Series, Farma Way finished 1991 with five consecutive losses. Twilight Agenda ended up winning six times in 11 starts and earning $1.5 million without bonus money.

Farma Way, injured a few days before the Breeders’ Cup Classic, would have been hard-pressed to have done any better than Twilight Agenda, who finished second, 1 1/4 lengths behind Black Tie Affair, the probable winner of 1991 horse-of-the-year honors when the announcement is made in Las Vegas a week from today.

Twilight Agenda even raced again three weeks after the Breeders’ Cup, winning the Native Diver Handicap at Hollywood Park. There are similarities between that race and today’s San Pasqual Handicap at Santa Anita: The field is small and Ibero, who was second in the Native Diver, again will be one of the horses Twilight Agenda must beat.

Twilight Agenda’s ability to run 1 1/4 miles is still in question; last year, his six victories were at distances between a mile and 1 1/8 miles. At 1 1/4 miles, including the Breeders’ Cup, he had two seconds and a fourth. Today, however, Twilight Agenda’s challenge is not distance--the San Pasqual is at 1 1/16 miles--but in the weights. The 6-year-old son of Devil’s Bag has been assigned 125 pounds, six to 14 more than his four opponents.

Ibero will carry nine fewer pounds than Twilight Agenda. In the Native Diver, when Ibero was second, beaten by 3 1/2 lengths, there was a seven-pound spread.

Chris McCarron, who rode Twilight Agenda to his last two victories, won’t be aboard today. McCarron, who fought flu toward the end of the Hollywood Park season last month, hasn’t ridden since last Sunday, and his doctor indicated Friday to the Santa Anita stewards that the jockey probably won’t be strong enough to return until Wednesday.

Pat Valenzuela, another jockey who has won with Twilight Agenda, is serving a five-day suspension, and two other local riders, Corey Nakatani and Martin Pedroza, are at Bay Meadows today. A rider will be selected this morning, but with Twilight Agenda it might not make any difference. Last year, seven jockeys rode him in his 11 races.

Nakatani and Pedroza are at Bay Meadows to ride in the $300,000 El Camino Real Derby, a stake that frequently has been won by 3-year-olds who go on to greater achievements. Previous winners include Tank’s Prospect, Snow Chief, Ruhlmann, Silver Ending and Sea Cadet, and other horses to come out of the race were Croeso, Gate Dancer, Badger Land and Hawkster.

Nakatani will ride Old Master, and Pedroza has the call on Silver Ray, both Santa Anita-based. Ron McAnally saddled the winner of the first El Camino Real in 1982, the one-eyed Cassaleria, and having won the last two runnings with Silver Ending and Sea Cadet, he is going for three in a row today with Old Master, who, like Sea Cadet, is owned by Verne Winchell.

Run Retsina Run is the 2-1 favorite, despite his second-place finish behind Big Pal in the California Juvenile three weeks ago. The Juvenile was run on an off track, and it was Run Retsina Run’s first loss in five starts. Big Pal also will be there today.

There will be betting on the telecast of the race at Santa Anita.

Ten horses, headed by Fabulous Champ, are entered for Sunday’s $125,000 California Breeders’ Champion Stakes for 3-year-old state-breds at Santa Anita.

Also in the field are Bossanova, Power Slyde, Spin Bo, Fax News, Meegan’s Interco, Never Round, Happy Daydream, Irish Twist and The Drouller.

Because of the Super Bowl, Santa Anita’s first post Sunday will be at 11 a.m.

Mickey Walls, the favorite to win the Eclipse Award as best apprentice jockey in 1991, plans to ride at Santa Anita from early February until Woodbine opens near Toronto in April.

The Canadian-born Walls, 17, won more than 230 races last year, his mounts earning more than $4 million.

Horse Racing Notes

Quest For Fame never had won in the United States, and the 5-year-old had failed in seven starts since winning the English Derby in 1990. Friday at Santa Anita, Quest For Fame beat Military Shot by a neck in the feature. Quest for Fame, third in last year’s Breeders’ Cup Turf and third in the Hollywood Turf Cup after that, was trained by Roger Charlton in Europe and is in Bobby Frankel’s barn now.

Tickets for the Eclipse Awards dinner, a week from tonight at the Las Vegas Hilton, have been a hard sell. The $250-a-plate affair could have one of its smallest crowds. This is the first time the dinner has been held outside a New York-Los Angeles-Miami-San Francisco rotation, but Eclipse officials aren’t blaming the poor response on the switch to Las Vegas. They say the reasons are the recession and competition from the University of Arizona’s annual December conferences in Tucson, which are extremely popular with race-track executives.

Formidable Lady, bought at auction for $42,000 in 1987, will run at Santa Anita today and then will be bred to Dayjur, who but for jumping shadows near the finish line would have won the Breeders’ Cup Sprint at Belmont Park in 1990. Formidable Lady, winner of seven races and in the money 12 other times out of 32 races, has earned $479,825. . . . The Breeders’ Cup and NBC have settled on Nov. 6 as the date for the seven-race, $10-million program in 1993. No site has been announced, but Santa Anita probably would be open at that time and California hasn’t held the races since 1987. . . . A sales-tax referendum passed in Texas keeps the group headed by R.D. Hubbard of Hollywood Park in contention for a racing license at a proposed new track near Dallas. Three other groups are in the bidding and the winner won’t be announced for several months.