HORSE RACING / BILL CHRISTINE : What Do You Reopen on Day After Christmas? Turf Debate

Varadavour, winner of the Carleton F. Burke Handicap on the closing day of the Oak Tree meet at Santa Anita, is in Florida for a $150,000 race today. Owner Gary Biszantz has sent a draft of grass horses to Florida, accompanied by Cobra King, one of the leading candidates for the Kentucky Derby. Trainer Bobby Frankel is shipping two fillies to Florida for turf races at Calder Race Course next week. Ten minutes after Royal Chariot won the Hollywood Turf Cup last Sunday, trainer Eddie Gregson said that the horse would skip Santa Anita’s winter meet and wait for Hollywood Park in the spring.

Santa Anita, which opens the day after Christmas, has scheduled 19 turf stakes races worth $2.85 million, but there are still nagging doubts about the condition of its oft-maligned grass course. Santa Anita spent more than $2 million rebuilding the course earlier this year, but at the Oak Tree meet that ended on Nov. 13, grass racing was virtually nonexistent but for the regularly scheduled turf stakes.

Many horsemen with grass horses were forced to suspend their campaigns until Hollywood Park opened in mid-November. But now the end of the Hollywood season is nearing--a week from Sunday--and there is more hand-wringing about the slowly maturing Santa Anita grass layout.

Last week, trainer Rodney Rash was invited to work four of his horses over the course. “It’s better than the last course [at the Oak Tree meet],” Rash said. “But there’s still room for improvement. I think the course is still a big question mark. I’d like to wait before I can pass judgment.”

Frankel, the fifth-leading trainer in the country with $5.6 million in purses, suffered through a dismal Oak Tree season and is back in overdrive at Hollywood Park. He says the contrast is more than a coincidence.

“I won two races at Santa Anita,” Frankel said. “My horses couldn’t seem to get their footing at the end of the races. If a horse fell behind, it was a struggle to make up ground.”

Going into the weekend, Frankel was tied with Bill Spawr for most victories at the Hollywood Park meet. Eight of Frankel’s 10 victories had come on grass.

Frankel discounted rumors that he might move an entire division--mostly grass horses--to Gulfstream Park in Florida.

“That would be too expensive,” Frankel said. “But if you can’t run at the track you’re at, you’ve got to start looking around.”

Frankel is the principal trainer in the United States for Prince Khalid Abdullah’s Juddmonte Farms, which sends him dozens of experienced European grass runners every year. About 60% of Frankel’s 1995 purse total has come from Juddmonte horses.

“I’m having a good year for Juddmonte,” Frankel said. “It’s a good thing, because what happened [at Oak Tree] really hurt me. Supposing my situation with Juddmonte was marginal? I could blow my job because a track isn’t right.”

Frankel sounds like a trainer who doesn’t want the Hollywood Park meet to end.

“I’m hoping for the best at Santa Anita,” he said, “but going over there isn’t something that I even like to think about. I hear that the course has big holes in it.”

Recent rain, expected to help the Santa Anita grass grow, prevented Rash from working another set of his horses this week. Tom Robbins, Santa Anita’s vice president for racing, couldn’t be reached for comment, but he recently told the Daily Racing Form that the track is scheduling 12 turf races for the first two weeks of the meet.

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Hennessy, winless since August, will still be the odds-on choice in Sunday’s $500,000 Hollywood Futurity.

Hennessy drew the inside post in a seven-horse field. He’ll be ridden by Gary Stevens, who has won 11 stakes this year, including the Kentucky Derby with Thunder Gulch, for trainer Wayne Lukas. Excetera, who will be ridden by Eddie Delahoussaye, will be next to Hennessy in the starting gate, and outside them, in order, come Matty G, with Alex Solis riding; Fourstarattraction, Kent Desormeaux; Odyle, Corey Nakatani; Tropicool, Jorge Chavez; and Ayrton S, Chris McCarron. They’ll all carry 121 pounds in the 1 1/16-mile race.

Hennessy began his career at Hollywood in June with a second-place finish, and then, after reeling off four consecutive victories, in races that included the Hollywood Juvenile, the Sapling at Monmouth Park and the Hopeful at Saratoga, he became the leading 2-year-old in the country. The streak ended, however, with a sixth-place finish in the Champagne, and in his last two races he has been second, by a neck against Unbridled’s Song in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Belmont Park and by half a length against Cobra King in the Hollywood Prevue on Nov. 19.

Lukas has won the Futurity three times, most recently with Grand Canyon, who was 4-5 in 1989. He has won the Hollywood Starlet three times, and today he saddles Cara Rafaela against Advancing Star, who has won her two starts by a total of 12 lengths. Cara Rafaela, second by half a length against My Flag in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies, was a well-beaten fourth when Lukas ran her at Churchill Downs six days later. Cara Rafaela has already won a stake at 1 1/16 miles, the Starlet distance, while Advancing Star will be making her first start around two turns.

* Horse Racing Notes

There hasn’t been much good news lately at Woodbine, which lost the sponsors--a beer company and a cigarette manufacturer--of its two $1-million showcase races. But on Friday, the Breeders’ Cup, with the approval of NBC, gave the suburban Toronto track what it wanted, an earlier date for the seven races next fall. The $10-million Breeders’ Cup will be held on Oct. 26 instead of Nov. 2.

“A week earlier can make a big difference in the weather,” said Bruce Walker, a Woodbine spokesman. “This year, the temperature was 60 degrees on the day comparable to what we’ll have now.”

Notre Dame’s football schedule is a priority for NBC, the Breeders’ Cup network, and the earlier racing date became possible when the Notre Dame game against Rutgers was moved to later in the season.

Post time for the first Breeders’ Cup race will be 1:30 p.m. at Woodbine, which should help the handle at the West Coast’s off-track betting sites.

This year, with an 11:55 a.m. start at Belmont Park and 8:55 a.m. at Santa Anita, California betting dropped 25%.