Santa Anita Calls Off 9th After Jockey Vote : Horse racing: They refuse to ride, saying rain and washouts make track perilous.

Murphy’s Law--which says that if something can go wrong, it will--was made for Santa Anita this season.

A rain-swept meeting that started on Dec. 26 with tote-machine malfunctions, resulting in an estimated loss of $3 million in business, suffered still another setback Sunday when the jockeys voted not to ride after the next-to-last race, forcing the track to cancel the ninth race and refund almost $400,000 to bettors.

A downpour hit the track shortly before the eighth race, the $112,100 San Gorgonio Handicap, and after that race the jockeys, citing safety factors, voted unanimously to quit riding for the day.

This was first time Santa Anita lost a race since Jan. 12, 1985, when a power failure resulted in a stake being run without betting and the cancellation of the last race of the day.

Santa Anita had problems that began on Saturday when the track was unable to get enough horses entered to fill out today’s nine-race card. Santa Anita has been hit by nearly 20 inches of rain since opening day, preventing trainers from working their horses and resulting in a suspension of turf racing since Jan. 1. Since there were fast tracks the first two days of the season, there have been 16 consecutive off tracks, breaking a Santa Anita record that was set in 1954 and matched in 1983.

With the San Gorgonio taken off the turf Sunday, nine of the 14 horses were scratched. On a track listed as sloppy, Southern Truce, a refugee from the $16,000 claiming ranks, splashed to a six-length victory before 10,345 fans at the track.

The five jockeys who rode in the San Gorgonio told the rest of the riders in the jockeys’ room that the track was too hazardous.

“Everybody who rode in the eighth said that they would not ride in the last race,” said jockey Chris McCarron, a Jockeys’ Guild representative. “The riders that didn’t ride in the eighth took their word for it. We called a meeting among ourselves to get everybody’s opinion, and of all the riders who were named to ride in the ninth, nobody voted to go out there and ride. So it was unanimous among all of us.”

Two of Santa Anita’s top jockeys, Eddie Delahoussaye and Pat Valenzuela, have not ridden the last few days, and Kent Desormeaux, the 1992 national purse leader who suffered serious head injuries in a spill at Hollywood Park in December, has postponed a comeback because he has been reluctant to work horses on a wet surface during training hours.

Regarding Sunday’s last-race cancellation, Santa Anita president Cliff Goodrich said: “We completely understand the position of the jockeys. They have ridden on off tracks for 16 consecutive days, and we could not ask any more of them than that. We certainly are not going to be a party to any potential additional danger to an already dangerous profession.”

Goodrich said that Steve Wood, Santa Anita’s track superintendent, and his crew should have the track repaired in time for today’s unusual card. With Santa Anita able to fill only six races, the program will be supplemented with betting on five televised races from Bay Meadows.

On Sunday, when entries are usually taken for Wednesday’s races, Santa Anita was unable to find enough horses to run. Entries will be taken today on both the Wednesday and Thursday programs.

“There are three options for Wednesday,” Goodrich said. “If we get enough horses, we’ll run as scheduled. If there’s an entry shortage, we might combine some of our live races with Bay Meadows races, as we’re doing on Monday. Or, we might not even run Wednesday and make up the day later in the season. We’ll make a decision on Monday.”

Sunday’s downpour flooded some areas of the track.

“The riders who rode in the eighth race said that it was a torrential downpour,” McCarron said. “The downpour substantially increased the size of the washouts that had begun earlier in the day. The washouts had become very deep ruts, or full streams, across the track.

“Usually when there are washouts, they are just down near the rail, and you can stay away from the rail. But with the torrent we got, they made the washouts deeper and wider, and there was no way of avoiding them. And with the water filling the washouts, there was no telling how deep they were. With that chance of a horse misstepping, you stand a chance of somebody getting a horse hurt.”

Because the ninth race was part of both the Pick Nine and the Pick Six, Santa Anita, under state racing rules, had to make adjustments in the payoffs. One winning ticket on the Pick Nine, which had seven winners from the first eight races, paid $76,801.40. There were 11 winning tickets on the Pick Six, each with five winners, good for $15,017.60 each.

Because the total Pick Nine pool was paid out Sunday, the pre-Sunday Pick Nine carryover of $287,215.95 will go into the pool on Wednesday, the next day the Pick Nine bet is offered. When the carryover tops $300,000 at Santa Anita, there is a mandatory payout the next racing day.