OAK TREE : Phone Chatter Upsets Sardula and Wins the Oak Leaf Stakes

With five minutes to go in the game Saturday, Herman Sarkowsky had given up on his alma mater, the Washington Huskies.

“(Veterinarian) Jack Robbins is a Cal man, and he was giving it to me pretty good about that time,” Sarkowsky said.

Even before they loaded Sarkowsky’s Phone Chatter into the starting gate for the $200,000 Oak Leaf Stakes, the owner-breeder had given up on his 2-year-old filly. “I didn’t expect to win,” Sarkowsky said. “I was just hoping that we’d run a good second, and then go to the Breeders’ Cup and have a lot of fun.”

But Washington rallied to beat Cal, 24-23, and Phone Chatter outran Sardula, the undefeated filly who had been 7 1/2 lengths better in the Del Mar Debutante, for a half-length victory.

At 1-5 with her stablemate Rhapsodic, Sardula was expected to set up a showdown with Strategic Maneuver, the undefeated horse from the East, in the $1-million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies at Santa Anita on Nov. 6. The race will be the same 1 1/16-mile distance as the Oak Leaf.

Asked how Phone Chatter could improve eight lengths in a month, her trainer, Richard Mandella, said: “That Del Mar race was seven furlongs, and this one was two turns, which is a different game. You never know whether young horses will improve or regress when they try two turns for the first time. And in the Debutante, my filly broke badly and was confused during the first part of the race. We still wouldn’t have won, but we probably would have been a better second.”

Laffit Pincay, who won four races for the day, needed all of his strength to keep Phone Chatter from drifting all the way over to the outside rail in the stretch run. As it was, they finished near the middle of the track.

“She was trying to get out with me and raced greenly,” Pincay said. “It had to be her greenness, because she’s a real sound filly. I was worried about the way she was trying to get out, but at least she came in some during the last part. When I got head and head (with Sardula), I was still fighting my filly.”

Sardula finished 7 1/2 lengths ahead of Tricky Code, the third-place finisher, and it was another three lengths back to Sardula’s entrymate, Rhapsodic, with Emerald Colony and Viz completing the order of finish.

Phone Chatter’s time of 1:41 3/5 was the second fastest in the 25 runnings of the Oak Leaf, and two-fifths of a second slower than the stakes record, set by It’s In The Air in 1978. Phone Chatter, who has won three of five starts, earned $120,000 and paid $12 as the second betting choice.

Sardula, under Eddie Delahoussaye, broke on top, but was pressured much of the way by Tricky Code, making her first stakes start.

“We just got outrun, that happens all the time,” trainer Brian Mayberry said of Sardula. “The other filly was just better than us.”

Phone Chatter stuck her head in front with about an eighth of a mile left, and then it was a matter of hanging on--and staying straight--through a long stretch drive.

“I don’t know if it was because this was her first time around (two) turns,” Delahoussaye said, “but she wasn’t striding real well, kind of going up and down. Sometimes those babies get a little muscle sore, and maybe she was trying to protect herself. But she’s sure got a lot of heart. She was trying to come back again at the end.”

Sarkowsky, the managing general partner of the Seattle Seahawks when they joined the NFL in 1976, has been racing horses since 1960. He sold his interest in the Seahawks in 1985. He bred Phone Chatter through a mating of Phone Trick and Passing My Way, and said that the Oak Leaf was the biggest victory for one of his homebreds.

Any time an offspring of Phone Trick wins a race, Mandella beams, and because he is also the trainer of this winner, his smile Saturday was especially wide. Mandella trained Phone Trick, and thought they were on their way to an Eclipse Award as best sprinter in 1986 before the horse was injured and retired.

Asked if Phone Chatter would have an advantage in the Breeders’ Cup because Santa Anita is her home track, Mandella said: “Not really. But I feel better having won a race over the track than if we had run third.”

Horse Racing Notes

Richard Mandella has a chance to win another important stake today when he saddles Kotashaan, the 4-5 morning-line favorite, in the Oak Tree Invitational. At 2-1 is Luazur, who knocked off Mandella’s 5-year-old by a nose in the Del Mar Invitational. Luazur received a seven-pound weight concession that day; both horses will be carrying 124 today.

After Sardula’s defeat, Brian Mayberry will try to recoup in today’s Norfolk Stakes. Mayberry’s Ramblin Guy is the 2-1 favorite, although he ran second, beaten by 2 1/2 lengths, to Winning Pact in the Del Mar Futurity.

Pat Valenzuela starts a five-day suspension today, but will be able to ride Let’s Elope, the 7-2 third choice, in the Oak Tree Invitational because of California’s designated-races rule. Valenzuela has won the last two Oak Trees, with Navarone and Filago, and might have won with Hawkster in 1989, but he was a no-show, leading to the end of a long relationship with agent Jerry Ingordo. Ron McAnally, who trains Let’s Elope, scrambled to get Russell Baze and he rode Hawkster to victory in a world-record time.

Valenzuela was suspended even though his mount, Melo Melody, wasn’t disqualified after finishing fourth in a race on Wednesday. The stewards ruled that Valenzuela hadn’t done enough to maintain a straight course. . . . Corey Nakatani received a five-day suspension, starting Wednesday, because stewards thought that Nakatani and his mount, Bolgerability, had forced Set On Cruise and jockey David Flores into the rail on the far turn of a race Friday. Set On Cruise still won the race and Bolgerability finished fifth.

Sky Beauty, who runs today at Belmont Park, and Paseana, scheduled to run next Sunday at Keeneland, are the future-book favorites for the Breeders’ Cup Distaff. Some of the horses that may challenge them are entered for Monday’s $100,000 Lady’s Secret Handicap, a 1 1/16-mile race on the holiday card at Santa Anita. The high weights, at 120 pounds apiece, are Jolypha, Pacific Squall and Magical Maiden, and Hollywood Wildcat and Re Toss are next at 117. Jolypha drew the rail, and outside her come Hollywood Wildcat, Re Toss, Pacific Squall, Magical Maiden, Looie Capote, Sacramentada and Wedding Ring.

Trainer Bobby Frankel, who runs Luazur in the Oak Tree, won two stakes Saturday for owner Edmund Gann--the $100,000 California Jockey Club Handicap at Bay Meadows with Gravieres and the $169,750 Louisiana Budweiser Breeders’ Cup at Louisiana Downs with Now Listen. . . . At Keeneland, Anjiz, a horse who was winless in eight starts while based on the California circuit this year, won the $76,050 Phoenix Breeders’ Cup Stakes and ran six furlongs in 1:07 3/5 to break the track record. The record of 1:08 1/5 was set by Exclusive Enough in 1987.