SANTA ANITA : Pacific Squall Wins El Encino

Neither rain, nor a quarter crack, nor a foul claim kept Pacific Squall from her appointed rounds.

The crack in her left front hoof came last August. Next came a virus and an ankle problem.

Finally, on Sunday, Pacific Squall was ready to resume her racing career, but then one of the season’s many squalls blew in to Santa Anita, leaving her owners, John McCaffery and Trudy Toffan, and their trainer, Paco Gonzalez, uncertain.

It was over a muddy track at Saratoga, in the Alabama Stakes last August, that Pacific Squall ran third and suffered her injury.

After Sunday’s fourth race, the interested parties sought the advice of Chris McCarron, who was to ride Pacific Squall for the first time.

“Chris had already ridden in a six-furlong race and one at a mile and a sixteenth,” McCaffery said. “So he figured to have a pretty good handle on how the track was.”

In effect, McCarron gave Pacific Squall the green light. “The track’s got a good bottom,” he said to Gonzalez.

Despite her layoff, Pacific Squall responded by winning the $108,900 El Encino Stakes by 2 1/4 lengths before 12,354.

In the winner’s circle after the race, McCarron asked everyone to wait under umbrellas until the three stewards ruled on a foul claim from Pat Valenzuela, who rode Avian Assembly to a second-place finish.

“I don’t want them to take this picture and then have them throw it away,” McCarron said.

Not many recent victories have come easily for the owners and trainer of Pacific Squall. Last month, in the Hollywood Turf Cup, they needed a disqualification decision by the stewards against Fraise, ridden by Valenzuela, for their Bien Bien to get the victory.

That race required an 11-minute review, but on Sunday the stewards didn’t need nearly as long. Pacific Squall came over slightly with about a sixteenth of a mile left, but McCarron straightened her out for the final strides by switching the whip to his right hand.

The second betting choice, Pacific Squall returned $5.60 and earned $63,900. Her time for 1 1/16 miles on a track that changed from muddy to sloppy was 1:45 3/5. The daughter of Storm Bird and Rambolie, who cost McCaffery and Toffan about $100,000 when they bought her as a weanling, has five victories and a third in seven starts. In her only other try, she was fifth on the grass in the Senorita Breeders’ Cup Stakes at Hollywood Park last May.

Sunday’s 13-10 favorite, Magical Maiden, finished third, six lengths behind Avian Assembly. La Spia and Interactive were scratched because of the off track, reducing the field to seven.

Since Pacific Squall resumed training, the goal has been the $200,000 La Canada Stakes on Jan. 30. “We had a difficult decision,” Gonzalez said Sunday. “It’s three weeks before the La Canada, and if she hadn’t run today, that would have meant training her up to a mile-and-an-eighth race off that long layoff, and then maybe if it keeps raining, I wouldn’t have even had the chance to work her much.”

Terre Haute set the pace, with Pacific Squall in second and Magical Maiden behind her down the backside. Avian Assembly was in last place after a half-mile, but only four lengths from the lead.

Magical Maiden made her bid on the far turn, but Pacific Squall took the lead as the field headed for home, and Avian Assembly, with a clear shot, couldn’t overtake her in the stretch.

“This filly showed her class today,” said McCarron, who won Saturday’s San Carlos Handicap on Sir Beaufort. “There was no contact with the other horse in the stretch. It (Pacific Squall’s drifting) was meaningless. My horse was so fit that the outrider pulled me up afterward. I couldn’t stop her without wrestling with her.”

Horse Racing Notes

Seattle Sleet, the 3-year-old colt who races for John Toffan and Trudy McCaffery, chipped a knee when third in the Del Mar Futurity, eliminating his chances of running in the Kentucky Derby. . . . Another of their horses, Fit N Fappy, a second-place finisher in the Del Mar Debutante, is out with a fractured cannon bone. . . . Bien Bien is scheduled to run in the San Marcos Handicap on Jan. 23. . . . A gate scratch of Finder’s Fortune, the fifth-race favorite, resulted in a refund of $147,717 in bets. Finder’s Fortune, scheduled to run for the first time since his fourth-place finish in the California Derby at Golden Gate Fields nine months ago, apparently hit himself and was favoring his right foreleg, according to track veterinarian Ray Baran.

Gilded Time, the future-book favorite for the Kentucky Derby, had his first workout since winning the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile on Oct. 31. He went three furlongs over a muddy track in 39 2/5 seconds. . . . River Special, winner of the Hollywood Futurity, skipped a half-mile workout because of the mud. “It’s not critical,” trainer Bob Hess said. “As soon as the track is decent, we’ll work him. He’s been galloping two miles a day, five days a week.” . . . David Flores begins a five-day suspension Wednesday.