It’s Like Sun Rising in the West

It has been happening since racing antiquity in California. The lordliest horses in the sport of kings come out to the West Coast and get their feelings hurt, their reputations soured--and their stud fees lowered.

It began with the apotheosis of western racing, the Santa Anita Handicap, the world’s first $100,000 race back in 1935.

It’s hard to conceive now of what a $100,000 race was in that Depression year. Bread was a nickel, gas was nine cents--but nobody had the nickel or the nine cents.

It was a daring, audacious purse for Dr. Charles Strub to post at Santa Anita. The bank he borrowed the money from sent its own armed guards. But he wanted instant credibility for his racing establishment and his daring had its desired effect: It lured the greatest horses in the country west.

The great Equipoise came out the first year. He was a horse known as “the Chocolate Soldier.” It was widely believed he was part-Pegasus, part-Man o’ War. C.V. Whitney’s first great champion had won 29 races up to then and was considered not only the best handicap horse of his time, but maybe all time.

California melted the Chocolate Soldier. Equipoise finished seventh in the Santa Anita Handicap, his worst race ever.

The next year, the great Discovery came out to take a stab at the world’s richest race. He was owned by the Vanderbilts. He went off at odds of 3-2 but finished seventh, too, behind a 24-1 shot, a 22-1 shot and a winner who paid $12.80.

The Eastern peerage pretty much returned to Belmont after that, with forays into Florida, darkly hinting that California was somehow beneath their patronage, no matter what its purses.

“The tracks run downhill,” they sniffed.

After the war, the Easterners spurned what they called the “left coast” until the mightiest stable of them all, Calumet Farms, which was to racing what Notre Dame was to football, decided to campaign its great Citation out West.

Citation had been a Triple Crown winner in ‘48, one of the greatest horses ever to run, but he had been forced to lay off for the whole 1949 season. The pickings looked easier at Santa Anita for his comeback in ’50.

They weren’t. A giant colt called Noor, with the blackest coat this side of an Arctic midnight, beat him in the Santa Anita Handicap, and in the San Juan Capistrano, in one of the greatest horse races ever run. Noor got weight from Citation--22 pounds in the Handicap, 13 pounds in the Capistrano. But Noor gave Citation a pound at Golden Gate, and beat him anyway.

Kelso, an indestructible gelding who was to win 39 races, was considered unbeatable when he came to Hollywood Park in the summer of 1964 for some easy pickings. He ran the second-worst race of his life in the Los Angeles Handicap, finishing eighth to an in-and-outer called Cyrano. Then he finished sixth in the Californian Stakes to an obscure sprinter called Mustard Plaster.

By now, it should have been clear to the East that the West was still wild and no place for a dude in a Homburg hat and a stuffy accent. But in 1977, they shipped out Seattle Slew, who had just won the Triple Crown, to say nothing of the Flamingo and the Wood and whatever else they entered him in.

He got trashed in the Swaps at Hollywood Park, where J.O. Tobin set the stakes record (1:58 3/5) and some other pretty good horses--Text and Affiliate--shuffled the Triple Crown winner back to fifth.

So, longtime observers of the scene were snickering into their Cobb salads last week when some Long Island types decided to send a hard-knocking but hardly Hall of Famer--six victories in 17 races--out to try for the million-dollar Hollywood Gold Cup.

Sultry Song was nobody’s Chocolate Soldier, and not to be confused with Citation or even Kelso.

The Daily Racing Form was ready for him and his ill-advised trip after he had finished third in the Nassau County Handicap to Strike The Gold and Pleasant Tap.

Wrote the Form in its Closer Look section: “Well, veteran Southern California racegoers, when was the last time a handicap horse from the East Coast shipped here to win a big stakes on his first visit? Summer Squall bombed last year, Broad Brush ran third, heck, even . . . Seattle Slew lost; this colt’s best races have been around one turn at Belmont Park; he’s coming up to the race nicely and the odds will be tempting, but you can have him and that’s coming from someone who was born in Queens.”

In the face of this broad-gauged, heartwarming welcome, Sultry Song’s owner, Dr. John Weber, and trainer, Pat Kelly, ponied up $40,000 to enter the horse--$25,000 supplementary, $5,000 to enter and $10,000 to start. They then put up $16,000 for the round-trip air fare. They lured jockey Jerry Bailey west with an undisclosed guarantee.

Sultry Song not only routed his field in the race, he routed tradition. Calumet Farms, the Whitneys, Vanderbilts, Chenerys would have been envious. He paid 10-1 at the windows, $21.80, and about 10-1, $550,000, to his owner.

Probably the same old story. The Rams, Raiders, Dodgers, Angels, Lakers can’t win anymore. Now, our horses can’t either. Must have gone Hollywood on us.