THOROUGHBRED RACING : Natural Nine to Try 1 1/4 Miles for First Time in Swaps Stakes

John Elardi, a Las Vegas hotel owner, and his trainer, Looie Cenicola, bought seven horses for $166,000 at a Keeneland auction in 1990.

“All seven of them made it to the races,” Cenicola said at Hollywood Park this week. “Well, no, one of them was sore and didn’t race. But we were still able to breed her.”

Six out of seven is still well above the average. More extraordinary, two of the seven have won stakes. Hopeful Amber, whom Elardi gave to his mother for a Christmas gift two years ago, has won at Santa Anita and Hollywood Park, and Natural Nine won last winter’s Bradbury Stakes at Santa Anita and the Silver Screen Handicap at Hollywood Park three weeks ago.

Natural Nine’s next assignment is his first try at 1 1/4 miles in today’s $200,000 Swaps Stakes at Hollywood Park. Cenicola, 45, has been a head trainer for only seven years but has been a horseman for most of his life and is realistic about Natural Nine.

“I wasn’t even thinking about running in the Silver Screen,” Cenicola said. “But it was a mile and an eighth, so the distance was right, and then I looked at who we’d be running against. It was almost like a race for non-winners of two (races).”

Natural Nine, running for the first time in more than three months, won the Silver Screen in 1:49 2/5, the slowest time for the stake since it was restored as a 1 1/8-mile race in 1987. The Swaps field was reduced to five 3-year-olds with the scratches of Hudlam’s Sidekick and Capote Magique, who was fourth in the Silver Screen. Hudlam’s Sidekick has been entered in an allowance race Sunday.

Remaining entrants in the Swaps are Bien Bien, winner of the Cinema Handicap on grass, and Treekster, a lightly raced colt who won the California Derby at Golden Gate Fields in early April and has made one start since then, a fourth-place finish in the Ohio Derby at Thistledown.

Natural Nine is a son of Mogambo. The year that Natural Nine was sold, an extraordinary number of Mogambo offspring--48--was auctioned, none drawing $100,000. Thirty-five Mogambo offspring drew lower prices than Natural Nine, whose dam, Next Fall, is a daughter of Alleged. Natural Nine made his debut at Del Mar last summer, and after breaking his maiden in his second race, he was sidelined for more than three months because of a chip in his ankle.

Going into this year, Cenicola thought he had a colt who would contend in the Triple Crown races.

“He’s a big horse, the kind that usually gets better when you give them more ground to cover,” Cenicola said. “I’ve always thought that this horse would be able to get the classic distances.”

Natural Nine ran a close second at a mile at Santa Anita in late January, then won the Bradbury three weeks later at 1 1/8 miles. On March 19, he ran against Bertrando in the 1 1/16-mile San Felipe Stakes. Natural Nine was fourth, but Bertrando beat him by only four lengths, and Cenicola was encouraged.

“After that, he got sick,” Cenicola said. “His blood (count) was out of whack. He spent 15 days in his stall with a temperature.”

At the time, Cenicola thought he had another Kentucky Derby candidate in Seahawk Gold, whobarely lost to Casual Lies in the El Camino Real Derby at Bay Meadows. Seahawk Gold was sent to Gulfstream Park for the Florida Derby, but ran poorly in a prep race and since then his career has been disrupted by injuries.

“Soundness is the name of the game,” Cenicola said. “I can’t say enough about the job (Neil) Drysdale did with A.P. Indy this year. Losing him on the day of the Derby, then bringing him back to win the Belmont, that was a first-class training job.”

As an assistant trainer and exercise rider, Cenicola spent several years with John Henry, whose $6.5-million career was a day-to-day proposition.

Cenicola grew up with an uncle and aunt in Arcadia, not far from Santa Anita, and a neighbor was Buddy Hirsch, a future Hall of Fame trainer. Hirsch trained until the early 1980s. Living by the epigram, “If you don’t wait on a horse, they’ll make you wait,” he trained 55 stakes winners.

One day, Cenicola’s uncle said to him, “You’re little, why don’t you think about riding horses?”

When Cenicola sounded interested, his uncle took him next door and introduced him to Hirsch.

“Buddy had my (riding) contract,” Cenicola said. “I rode for him for 10 years, off and on. How many races did I win? Not many. I worked about 15 years for Ronnie (McAnally, John Henry’s trainer). I learned a lot from both of them. I’ve learned from just about everybody I’ve ever worked for.”

Horse Racing Notes

Algenib is expected to be an odds-on favorite Sunday in the $250,000 Sunset Handicap. There are only five entrants for the 1 1/2-mile grass race. Stark South has the rail, at 113 pounds, with Eddie Delahoussaye riding. Algenib, with 122 pounds and Laffit Pincay, will be next in the gate, followed by Berillon, with Corey Nakatani and 113 pounds; Qathif, Alex Solis, 114; and Seven Rivers, Chris McCarron, 112. . . . Qathif and Seven Rivers are both trained by Charlie Whittingham, who at one point had won the Sunset for six consecutive years, starting in 1978. Overall, Whittingham has won the stake 10 times.

Bobby Frankel, who trains Berillon for Juddmonte Farms, will saddle two horses for that stable and also run a horse in Sunday’s other stake, the $150,000 Bel Air Handicap at 1 1/16 miles. The Juddmonte horses in the Bel Air, who will be coupled in the betting, are Digression and Marquetry. Frankel’s other entrant in the seven-horse field is Missionary Ridge. Rounding out the field are Mujaazif, Renegotiable, Latin American and Music Prospector. Marquetry, at 120 pounds and to be ridden by Kent Desormeaux, will spot the opposition eight to 10 pounds.

The Sunset is the fourth race on the card, the Bel Air the eighth. . . . Natural Nine is the 8-5 morning-line favorite for the Swaps, followed by Bien Bien at 9-5 and Treekster, the probable pace-setter, at 5-2. . . . The 69-day season will end Monday with the running of the $100,000 Hollywood Juvenile Championship. Then the circuit shifts on Wednesday to Del Mar.