OAK TREE : Breeders’ Cup Helps Meeting Surge in Attendance, Handle

Buoyed by the Breeders’ Cup, Oak Tree at Santa Anita concluded its meeting with significant gains in total and average handle and total attendance.

Total handle was up 39.8% over last year for the 31-day meeting, which concluded Monday. The combined handle was $244,682,794 compared to $175,073,560 last year.

The average handle of $7,892,993 was up 21.7% over last year’s $6,484,206 and the combined total attendance of 944,549 was up 15.8% above 1992’s figure of 815,862.

On-track, the gain in total handle was 26.1% and the gain in total attendance was 17.3%.

The on-track average attendance was 16,117, up 2.2 percent from last year and the combined average attendance of 30,469 was a slight increase.

Exclusive of Breeders’ Cup day (Nov. 6), daily average on-track attendance was down 4.1% while daily averange on-track handle was up .1%.

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Bertrando, second to Arcangues in the Breeders’ Cup Classic, needs surgery to remove a bone chip from his left leg and will be sidelined for four months.

The 4-year-old Skywalker colt, who won the Pacific Classic and the Woodward in his two starts before his loss in the Breeders’ Cup, will undergo the surgery in the near future, according to trainer Bobby Frankel.

“It didn’t even show up right after the race,” Frankel said. “He’s not lame. He had a filling in the leg.”

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Eddie Delahoussaye, who took off his final three mounts Monday because of illness, easily won the riding title at Oak Tree with 41 victories, 11 more than Kent Desormeaux.

After finishing second on favored Seti I. in the third, Delahoussaye took off the rest of the day. This was the second Oak Tree championship for the jockey, who finished the meeting with eight stakes winners. He won with 40 victories in 1989.

Richard Mandella led the trainers with 11 winners, one more than Ron Ellis.

“Winning the training title is significant, but it came down to winning a training title or winning a Breeders’ Cup race, I’d take the Breeders’ Cup,” Mandella said. He won Breeders’ Cup races with Phone Chatter and Kotashaan 10 days ago and also won two other stakes on that card.

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Kotashaan, who won the Oak Tree Invitational and the Breeders’ Cup Turf, was voted horse of the meeting in balloting by reporters.

Arcangues, who paid $269.20 in winning the Breeders’ Cup Classic, was voted top handicap horse. Other winners were: Paseana (older filly/mare), Hollywood Wildcat (3-year-old filly), Pleasant Tango (3-year-old male), Brocco (2-year-old male), Phone Chatter (2-year-old filly), Kotashaan (grass horse), Cardmania (sprinter), Viva El Capitan (claiming horse), Breeders’ Cup Distaff (race of the meeting), Delahoussaye (jockey), Mandella (trainer) and Sal Gonzalez, Jr. (apprentice).

Horse Racing Notes

Alex Solis won three times Monday and Chris McCarron had two winners. . . . Secret Sight, a maiden filly who broke down as the favorite in last Friday’s third race, will undergo surgery today at Alamo Pintado to repair a broken leg. . . . Kotashaan, who will make his next start in the Japan Cup on Nov. 28, worked a half-mile in 49 3/5 Monday morning. . . . With Kent Desormeaux in Tokyo for the Japan Cup, Gary Stevens has picked up the mount on Toussaud in the $400,000 Matriarch on Nov. 28 at Hollywood Park. Stevens also will ride in the Japan Cup, then return immediately.