SANTA ANITA : The Malibu Will Reunite Foes as 57th Meeting Begins Today

Less than a year ago, they were all being penciled in for the Kentucky Derby--Gilded Time and River Special having run first and third, respectively, in the 1992 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, and Diazo having been an unheralded colt who blossomed quickly during the winter at Santa Anita.

As it turned out, only Diazo reached the Derby last May, and although he ran a respectable fifth at Churchill Downs, it was probably a case of too much too soon. He needed a four-month rest, sore shins and sore hoofs having done him in.

Gilded Time and River Special were casualties even before that. Gilded Time, holder of an Eclipse Award for winning all four of his races as a 2-year-old, faded from the Triple Crown picture two months before the Derby, with no starts as a 3-year-old and a puzzling hoof injury that wouldn’t heal.

River Special ran once at Santa Anita, and because of a fever was probably a couple of workouts short when he finished fifth in the San Felipe Stakes. After that, a splint injury took him out of the Santa Anita Derby and the Triple Crown.

Now, these three hard-luck colts have belatedly been brought together. They will help launch Santa Anita’s 57th meeting in the Malibu Stakes today.

Post time for the first race today is noon. The basic schedule calls for racing Wednesday through Sunday, with a few exceptions before the meet ends on April 25.

Gilded Time and River Special finally got back to the races this fall. Trainer Darrell Vienna sent Gilded Time into the Breeders’ Cup Sprint off a 371-day layoff.

“We were going to bring him back with a six-furlong race,” Vienna said in defending his decision a few days before the Nov. 6 Sprint. “He was ready for that, so why not now?”

Gilded Time drew a horrible inside post, but was in the race all the way and finished third behind Cardmania and Meafara, beaten by less than a length. “He ran his eyeballs out,” said Chris McCarron, who will ride Gilded Time again today.

Strangely, the Sprint was Gilded Time’s first start over a track that he usually trains on. His run to the 1992 Eclipse was distinguished by an ability to master a variety of tracks--Hollywood Park, Monmouth Park, Arlington International and Gulfstream Park for the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile.

“We’re aiming for the Strub series,” Vienna said. “I was proud of the way he ran in the Breeders’ Cup.”

Other races in the Strub series, restricted to horses foaled in 1990, are the $200,000 San Fernando Stakes on Jan. 16 and the $500,000 Strub Stakes on Feb. 6. The Strub, a race named after Charles H. Strub since 1963, now also notes the memory of his son, Bob. The Strubs ran Santa Anita from the day it opened in 1934 until Bob Strub’s death on May 5.

Only five horses have swept the Strub races, none since Precisionist in 1985, and even though Gilded Time might be good again, he will have no cakewalk with River Special around. Trained by Bob Hess Jr., River Special didn’t make his comeback in the Breeders’ Cup, but his race on Nov. 27, in the Bedside Promise Handicap at Hollywood, was also a tough assignment. For his first start in 8 1/2 months, River Special was running against older horses and spotting them weight, and after breaking slowly he finished third in a five-horse field.

With Kent Desormeaux finishing a suspension from the final week of the Hollywood Park season, Pat Valenzuela has drawn the assignment on River Special for the Malibu, giving him the chance to ride the colt for the first time.

After the Derby, Diazo returned to action in late August. The Bill Shoemaker trainee won a grass race at Del Mar, then beat a mediocre field in the Pegasus Handicap at the Meadowlands. Three weeks before the Breeders’ Cup, Diazo found himself in an unusual position, on the lead, in a paceless Jockey Club Gold Cup at Belmont Park. Disoriented, he was also running without Lasix because of New York rules, and wound up bleeding from the lungs and finishing last in the five-horse field.

In the Breeders’ Cup Classic, Shoemaker thought that Diazo had a chance to win at the quarter pole, but the colt was never closer than third and had no punch through the stretch en route to sixth place.

Of the seven Breeders’ Cup winners, four are expected to be in action during the Santa Anita meet. The list includes Cardmania and Hollywood Wildcat. Brocco, winner of the Juvenile and then a solid second in the Hollywood Futurity, probably will get another chance against Valiant Nature as both colts prepare for the Santa Anita Derby on April 9. Arcangues, 133-1 winner of the Classic, has gone from French trainer Andre Fabre to local conditioner Richard Mandella and is a possibility for the $1-million Santa Anita Handicap on March 5.

Horse Racing Notes

Gilded Time goes into the Malibu with $975,980 in earnings. . . . After being dark Monday, Santa Anita will hold its only Tuesday program this week, with the $100,000 La Brea Stakes for 3-year-old fillies featured. . . . After today, the first post will be at 12:30 p.m. through Feb. 21.

Santa Anita will televise at least one race daily from either Bay Meadows or Golden Gate Fields. Because Santa Anita doesn’t have lights, and a state law requires at least 10 minutes between races, it would be difficult for the track to offer more than one race from the Bay Area. At the recently completed 26-day Hollywood Park meeting, there was betting on 34 races from Bay Meadows. The handle of $6.7 million averaged almost $200,000 for those races. Hollywood Park sent 69 of its races to Bay Meadows, for an average handle of $111,859. The law restricts the importing of North-South action to races worth $20,000 or more.

The leaders at Santa Anita’s last meeting were jockey Gary Stevens with 90 victories and trainer Mike Mitchell with 31. . . . Christine Picavet, the equine artist who used to exercise horses for trainer Charlie Whittingham, is donating all proceeds from 1,000 prints of one of her paintings to the Sierra Madre Volunteer Firefighters’ Assn. The painting is Picavet’s portrayal of the firefighters containing a blaze this year near the Passionist Mater Dolorosa Retreat Center in Sierra Madre.