HORSE RACING / TRIPLE CROWN RATINGS : Big Two in San Felipe Scare Others Away

REMARKS: With more horses going than coming, Santa Anita is faced with a short field Sunday for the $200,000 San Felipe Stakes, which will draw Afternoon Deelites, Timber Country and little else.

“If I’m going to face those horses, I’d just as soon it come at a mile and a quarter, when they’re carrying 126 pounds,” trainer Gary Lewis said, referring to the conditions for the Kentucky Derby on May 6. Lewis was talking about Jumron, who hasn’t run since winning the El Camino Real Derby by nine lengths at Bay Meadows on Jan. 14. Jumron got a break that day, because Timber Country, champion 2-year-old male in 1994, didn’t run there.

Jumron has been nominated for the 1 1/16-mile San Felipe at Santa Anita on Sunday but Lewis will wait to run his colt in the $150,000 Golden State Derby, a new race that Bay Meadows is running on March 25.

The $300,000 Louisiana Derby, which was the launching pad for Risen Star’s third-place finish in the Kentucky Derby and victories in the Preakness and Belmont Stakes in 1988, will be run at the New Orleans Fair Grounds Sunday, and California shippers On Target and In Character are expected to run. French Deputy, another California horse, won’t run in New Orleans because his trainer, Neil Drysdale, said that the storm that hit California last weekend is headed for Louisiana. And French Deputy’s owner, Irv Cowan, is not eager to meet Afternoon Deelites and Timber Country at Santa Anita.

Last Saturday’s Florida Derby has launched a trainers’ give and take that is reminiscent of verbal jousts between Lucien Laurin and Pancho Martin, the trainers of Secretariat and Sham in 1973, and Laz Barrera and John Veitch, who had Affirmed and Alydar in 1978.

“We’ll break his heart eventually,” Wayne Lukas said of Nick Zito’s horse after Lukas’ Thunder Gulch beat Suave Prospect by inches for the second time.

Winner of the Kentucky Derby with Go For Gin last year and Strike The Gold in 1991, Zito said: “Wayne will break a lot of hearts, but I’m sure Suave Prospect’s won’t be one of them.”

The talking and running resume when Thunder Gulch and Suave Prospect have a rematch at Keeneland on April 15.

TRIPLE CROWN RATINGS

Horse Starts 1 2 3 Earnings 1. Afternoon Deelites 4 4 0 0 $410,925 2. Timber Country 8 4 0 3 951,090 3. Thunder Gulch 8 4 2 1 691,006 4. Suave Prospect 12 4 5 1 358,850 5. Larry The Legend 4 3 1 0 163,425 6. French Deputy 3 3 0 0 66,000 7. Eltish 6 3 2 1 372,319 8. Tejano Run 6 3 1 1 311,147 9. Jumron 6 4 2 0 181,880 10. Mystery Storm 7 4 0 1 96,420

Advisory panel for The Times’ Triple Crown Ratings: Jim Bolus, a racing historian who has written five books about the Kentucky Derby; Trevor Denman, announcer at four tracks in Southern California; Tom Durkin, track announcer in New York and Florida; and Dave Johnson, racing telecaster for ABC and ESPN.