SANTA ANITA : Frequent-Flying Music Merci to Make First Start as 7-Year-Old

The year 1989 was not the best time to be racing a 3-year-old, unless his name was Sunday Silence or Easy Goer. Those two colts combined to win 15 of 20 races, and in four of the five they didn’t win, they were beating one another.

For trainers of 3-year-olds that year the game was to find a race that Sunday Silence or Easy Goer weren’t running. And there were actually a few of those around.

Prized, the only horse that beat Sunday Silence that year, other than Easy Goer, earned $1.8 million. His handlers’ shopping around led to a trip to Canada for a $1-million race and a switch to grass.

Western Playboy earned $877,175, his owners not sheepish at all about taking the check for beating virtually nothing in the Pennsylvania Derby.

Music Merci didn’t do so badly, either, earning $714,240. The gray gelding, a son of Stop The Music, ran third in the Santa Anita Derby, a race that was won by Sunday Silence by a record 11 lengths. So instead of getting Kentucky Derby fever, the owners of Music Merci, Harvey and Thea Cohen, and their trainer, Craig Lewis, wisely developed Sunday Silence-itis.

Flying Continental, second in the Santa Anita Derby, was taken to Churchill Downs by a reluctant trainer and finished 12th as Sunday Silence won the Derby.

Music Merci, on the other hand, was shipped to Sportsman’s Park, where he was the 6-5 favorite in the Illinois Derby. It became a $310,000 trip when the stewards disqualified the winner, Notation, for interference, moving second-running Music Merci into the victory.

Sunday Silence is in Japan now, at a stud farm.

For Music Merci, gelded before he ever ran a race, life at the racetrack continues. He will make his first start as a 7-year-old today in the Palos Verdes Handicap at Santa Anita.

Music Merci is well traveled but, because of bad ankles, hasn’t been heavily raced. He has started 26 races at 10 tracks, has won nine and earned $1.3 million for the Cohens and their minority partner, Lawrence Pendleton. On Dec. 27, at Bay Meadows, he raced for the first time in more than eight months, scoring a 1 1/2-length victory almost three years to the day that he had last won, in the Malibu on opening day at Santa Anita in 1989.

Armando Lage is Music Merci’s trainer now, as he has been twice previously, before he ever ran and after Ron McAnally replaced Craig for the virtually barren year of 1990.

“In 1991, it was an off-and-on battle to try to get him back to the races,” Lage said. “He was turned out at the farm (in Bradbury) for seven or eight months. Harvey (who bought Music Merci for $51,000 as an unraced 2-year-old) is very attached to this horse and wanted to see him race again.”

Music Merci underwent surgery on his ankles and ended a 20-month gap in racing with a sixth-place finish at Golden Gate Fields last February.

“It’s been a hard battle,” Lage said. “He’s a horse that will give you more than you want in the mornings, but because of his legs, you’ve got to train him lightly. You’ve got to be extremely easy with him.”

As a 2-year-old, Music Merci won the Del Mar Futurity and that fall he ran fourth, behind Is It True, Easy Goer and Tagel, in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Churchill Downs. He also finished second to King Glorious in the Hollywood Futurity.

Last Sunday, Music Merci was entered in a 6 1/2-furlong grass race down the hill at Santa Anita. Lage scratched him when the rains subsided, preventing the race from being moved to the dirt.

“We’re starting him out in sprints,” Lage said. “But depending on how things go, I’d like to try stretching him out eventually.”

Music Merci isn’t the only 7-year-old entered in today’s Palos Verdes. Answer Do and Cardmania, also his age, have run 96 times combined, and there is also a 5-year-old, Gundaghia, in the field.

Navarone, who led last year’s Breeders’ Cup Turf until the top of the stretch, suffered a broken right front cannon bone while galloping at Santa Anita on Friday morning.

After surgery to insert a pin in the leg today, Navarone will be sidelined for about six months.

Navarone went off the second choice to Sky Classic in the Turf before finishing seventh. He went to Gulfstream Park with a five-race winning streak, including victories in the Del Mar Handicap and the Oak Tree Invitational. Fraise won the Turf by a nose over Sky Classic.

The Turf was Navarone’s first defeat in five starts on grass. Trainer Rodney Rash was considering a return to dirt for the 5-year-old when he was injured.

Gary Stevens rode the feature-race winner for the third consecutive day Friday when he and Wild Harmony beat Saratoga Gambler by a nose. Stevens is the meet’s leading jockey with 36 victories.

Wild Harmony is owned by Jerry and Ann Moss and trained by Brian Mayberry. They will try to win Sunday’s $100,000 Santa Ynez Breeders’ Cup for 3-year-old fillies with Set Them Free, with Eddie Delahoussaye riding. Set Them Free bounced back from an 11th-place finish in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies with a victory in the Pasadena Stakes on Dec. 29.

Mayberry will also saddle Blue Moonlight in the seven-furlong Santa Ynez. Others entered are Borneastermorn, Fit To Lead, Nijivision, Booklore, Angie’s Treasure and Tour. Blue Moonlight is the high weight at 123 pounds, two more than Set Them Free, and then there is a drop to three fillies with 116 pounds each.

Horse Racing Notes

Trishyde, who ran three times in the United States this fall for owner Stavros Niarchos and trainer Francois Boutin, has been sold to Wayne Hughes of Bel Air and is in George Vogel’s barn at Santa Anita. The 4-year-old filly made her American debut in the Breeders’ Cup Turf at Gulfstream Park, finishing sixth, and continued to race against males at Hollywood Park, finishing second in the Citation Handicap and third in the Hollywood Turf Cup. . . . Gilded Time worked half a mile Friday in :48 1/5.

Mountain Cat, fifth in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, gets started as a 3-year-old in the San Vicente Breeders’ Cup Stakes on Feb. 7. Chris McCarron is scheduled to ride the colt for the first time. . . . McCarron seeks another victory today with Pacific Squall, who will be heavily favored in the La Canada. They won the El Encino on Jan. 10, with the filly returning from a layoff of almost five months. . . . Betty Johnston of Old English Rancho in Ontario suffered a stroke Friday and is in intensive care at the Seventh Day Adventist Hospital.