OAK TREE : Eye-Opening Payoffs Needed on Santa Anita’s First Races

Oak Tree will stage its version of a marathon today at Santa Anita.

Horse players will be asked to handle 14 races--seven live events and the seven Breeders’ Cup races from Gulfstream Park.

Post time is 9:15 a.m. for the first of three races to be run here before the first Breeders’ Cup race at 10:50.

After the Breeders’ Cup Classic, Oak Tree will wrap up the day with four more live races.

The local feature is the $75,000-added Morvich Handicap, scheduled at 6 1/2 furlongs on the turf. Because of Friday’s rain, the race probably will be switched to the dirt and it could have few as four starters.

Time Gentlemen was scratched Friday and entered in Sunday’s Most Host Handicap, and Showbrook, an Irish-bred who has never raced on the main track, might also be scratched if the Morvich is taken off the turf.

Regal Groom, who has won five of 13 this year, is the 8-5 morning-line favorite. A 5-year-old son of Runaway Groom, he runs well on turf and dirt. He has won three of his last four starts, including a neck victory over Gum in the Pomona Handicap at Fairplex Park on Oct. 4.

Martin Pedroza will ride Regal Groom for trainer Caesar Dominguez. In his last two sprints at Santa Anita, the gray has a victory and a runner-up finish to Heart Of Joy.

Repriced, who won his debut on the hillside turf course, is the 2-1 second choice. Russell Baze will ride for trainer Willard Proctor. A 4-year-old son of Roberto, Repriced has only one victory in five starts on the dirt.

The other starters besides Showbrook, who won four of 12 in Europe, are Waterscape, who was second to Repriced on Oct. 12, and Bailarin, who was sixth of seven in the Bay Meadows Budweiser Breeders’ Cup on Sept. 26.

For the fourth time in two days, a horse was disqualified from victory when Spirited Susan’s number was taken down after she had crossed the wire first in the $51,525 Cascapedia Handicap on Friday.

D’Or Ruckus, the 2-1 second choice in the field of seven fillies and mares, was moved up after she was bumped several times approaching the wire by Spirited Susan, a 12-1 shot ridden by Hector Torres.

Over a track labeled sloppy, the seven-furlong race was completed in 1:24. She’s Tops, the 6-5 favorite, was fourth in her first try over an off surface. Well positioned early from her outside post by David Flores, the 3-year-old Capote filly couldn’t match strides with the first two finishers through the stretch and wound up also being beaten by Sheltered View.

Gary Stevens, disqualified twice after apparent victories on Thursday, was given a five-day suspension, beginning Sunday, for the first of those two incidents.

Scheduled to ride three horses today in the Breeders’ Cup, Stevens was set down for his ride on The Medic, who was disqualified in Thursday’s third race. He was cited for failure to maintain a straight course down the backstretch.

Stevens was absolved of blame on Tara’s Secret, who finished first, then was placed second for bothering C.C. Overdrive near the wire in the seventh race. Also absolved was Martin Pedroza, whose mount in the second race, Intent To Assent, was dropped to second for interfering with Heap Of Gold.

No one could remember three disqualifications in a day, including Noble Threewitt, a trainer in California since 1932, and Charlie Whittingham, 79.

“I’d have to say it was a first,” Threewitt said.

Said Whittingham: “I’ve been training some 60 years and don’t ever recall that happening. Even during the early years in Tijuana, when there were no laws to speak of regulating racing, I don’t remember that ever happening.”

Horse Racing Notes

Ohio Charmer, who broke through the gate and unseated rider Gallyn Mitchell before the start of the ninth race Thursday, had to be humanely destroyed because of a leg injury. . . . Corey Nakatani won four races Friday, the first on Granja Gaucho, then consecutive victories with Chabeli in the fourth, Keep On Turnin in the fifth and Bitter Rice in the sixth. . . . Paul Atkinson had two victories.

Star Glimmer, who finished ninth at 118-1 in the ninth race Friday, was claimed by trainer Jeff Josephson for owner-trainer Richard Mandella. Star Glimmer, who has beaten only two horses in three starts, was claimed for breeding purposes. She is a half sister to Pleasant Stage, winner of last year’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies and the Eclipse Award winner as the nation’s top 2-year-old filly.