Best of Pals : He Never Caught Alysheba or John Henry, but Retiring Big ‘Cap Winner Will Be Fondly Recalled by Racing Fans

Best Pal’s groom, Jose Vera, needs to be on his toes when the 8-year-old gelding is paraded before the crowd on Santa Anita Handicap day Saturday.

“There’s always the chance,” trainer Richard Mandella said, “that he’ll think we’re bringing him over there to run a mile and a quarter.”

He might be the last to know, but Best Pal’s racing days are over, after three Santa Anita Handicaps--one of them a victory, in 1992--and 44 other races. He won 18 times, earning $5,668,245. The only horses ahead of him are Alysheba, who raced from 1985 to ’88 and earned $6,679,242; and John Henry, another indefatigable gelding whose eight-year career ended in 1984, when he was a 9-year-old, with $6,597,947 in the bank.

The goal for Best Pal was to pass Alysheba and John Henry on the money list, but a couple of weeks after he finished next to last, beaten by more than 13 lengths, in the San Pasqual Handicap at Santa Anita on Jan. 15, his owners and breeders, John and Betty Mabee, decided to retire him. Long ago, the Mabees said that they would run Best Pal only as long as he was sound and competitive in top company. Now, he is only half of that, so they have honored their word.

“He is still so sound,” said Mandella, who trained Best Pal for the last 14 races of his career. “Another horse, you’d turn him out, sharpen him up and bring him back to try it again. But then people would just be waiting for something to happen to him, and if it did, none of us would ever be able to forgive ourselves. This was always a concern, and while it was left unsaid, it was on our minds.”

Sometime next week, Best Pal will leave Mandella’s barn at Hollywood Park and be vanned the 130 miles or so to the Mabees’ Golden Eagle Farm near Ramona. Waiting for him will be the same paddock used by Habitony, Best Pal’s 22-year-old sire. The Mabees are setting up a trust fund to care for Best Pal.

“He’ll be set for the rest of his life,” John Mabee said. “It’s money set aside to support him, and if he should outlive us, there’s enough there to take care of him the rest of the way.”

Best Pal was foaled on Feb. 12, 1988, the son of Habitony and Ubetshedid, a King Pellinore mare. Going back another generation, there are the names of Gallant Man and Round Table in his genealogy.

“It’s a nice family,” Mabee said. “But let’s face it, this is one of those things that happens in breeding once in a while. I claimed Best Pal’s grandmother, Ubetido, out of a race at Del Mar. Her daughter, Ubetshedid, was not a great producer. When it comes to breeding, Best Pal fits in there with the John Henrys of the world. Cigar, even. No one could have predicted that a son of Palace Music would have done what he’s done.”

There was no thought of sending Best Pal to a yearling auction, because he probably would have brought only $5,000 or $10,000, and the Mabees quickly had him gelded, as they do most of their California-breds.

First trained by Ian Jory, Best Pal ran his first race May 18, 1990 and beat maidens at Hollywood Park. A month later, he finished second in the Ladbroke Futurity at Golden Gate Fields. That was the only time that the late Ron Hansen rode the horse, and much later, as Best Pal began to stockpile stakes wins, the jockey joked: “Shows you what kind of a rider I am. I got Best Pal beat.”

After Golden Gate, Best Pal won four consecutive stakes at Del Mar and Santa Anita, finished sixth in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Belmont Park and returned home to finish the year with a victory in the Hollywood Futurity.

“When he was a 2-year-old, I was saying that I’d be surprised if he didn’t break the all-time money record,” Jory said. “He was a gelding, so you knew he wasn’t going to be sent to stud after a couple of years. He was sound, and he had a great temperament. And he was winning almost all the time.”

As a 3-year-old, Best Pal couldn’t beat Dinard at Santa Anita, including a close second to that rival in the Santa Anita Derby. An injured Dinard wasn’t in the 1991 Kentucky Derby, but Strike The Gold was, and he won by 1 3/4 lengths as Best Pal finished second.

“The Derby was the biggest race for me when I had him,” Jory said. “The other races were fun, but his wins as a 2-year-old were like formalities.”

The deep, sandy tracks in the East were Best Pal’s undoing. After a fifth in the Preakness and a second in the Silver Screen Handicap at Hollywood, Best Pal was winless in five starts as a 3-year-old, and the frustrated Mabees transferred the horse to the veteran Gary Jones. “He was a good, tough, hard-nosed competitor who knew what he had to do,” Jones said. “Whenever he got beat, it had more to do with what you hadn’t done to get him ready.”

Best Pal won three $1-million races, a record that he shares with Alysheba. The first of those for Best Pal was the Hollywood Futurity while with Jory, and the others, under Jones, were the Pacific Classic at Del Mar in 1991 and the Santa Anita Handicap in 1992.

Jones cherishes both of those $1-million wins, though not necessarily for the size of the pots.

“The Pacific Classic meant so much to the Mabees,” Jones said, “because it was the big new race at their track [John Mabee is board chairman at Del Mar]. And Best Pal was just a 3-year-old, beating older horses that included the [1990] Kentucky Derby winner [Unbridled].

“The Big ‘Cap was special because of my family [Farrell Jones, his father, had been unsuccessful with eight starters in the race, and Gary Jones had run five horses without winning]. We had tried to win that race for a long time, and it didn’t look like we were ever going to win it. Best Pal was at his very best that day. He won under a hand ride [from Kent Desormeaux].”

Best Pal had eight wins, five seconds and two thirds in 20 races while in Jones’ care, but in 1994, for reasons they have kept to themselves, the trainer and the Mabees parted ways and the horse moved to Mandella’s barn.

“Where do I go from here?”

This was the question Mandella asked himself when he first took on Best Pal.

“You only had to be around him a few days to know that he was something special,” Mandella said last week. “Part of it was physical, part of it was his personality. When he wanted your attention, he would give you a big look with just one of his eyes. He could look right through you. It would give you a chill.”

From mid-1994 on, Best Pal wasn’t quite good enough for encores in races that had once been his. He finished second, beaten by one length by Tinners Way, in the Pacific Classic; Urgent Request beat him by a head in the Santa Anita Handicap.

“He didn’t win the Big ‘Cap, but that was still the big race for me,” Mandella said. “He just missed. He tried his guts out.”

In his next-to-last race, Luthier Fever, trained by Gary Jones, beat Best Pal at Santa Anita by 1 1/4 lengths in the California Cup Classic, a race Best Pal had won easily in 1993.

“I think Luthier Fever broke Best Pal’s heart,” Ian Jory said.

Best Pal won only one of his last seven starts. He bit John Mabee on the shoulder one day, perhaps trying to get a message across.

“He caught me by surprise,” Mabee said. “You shouldn’t turn your back on him.”

Vera, the groom, will be cautious Saturday. For a retiree with a pension, Best Pal doesn’t look or act the part.

“I saw him galloping the other day,” Gary Jones said. “He looked great.”

Best Pal’s Career

YEAR BY YEAR

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Year St 1 2 3 Purses 1990 8 6 1 0 $1,026,195 1991 10 2 5 1 $1,107,500 1992 5 4 0 0 $1,672,000 1993 8 2 1 2 $903,750 1994 7 2 2 1 $420,200 1995 8 2 2 0 $538,600 1996 1 0 0 0 $0 Totals 47 18 11 4 $5,668,245

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THE BIG FOUR

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Horse St 1 2 3 Purses Alysheba 26 11 8 2 $6,679,242 John Henry 83 39 15 9 $6,597,947 Best Pal 47 18 11 4 $5,668,245 *Cigar 26 15 2 4 $5,269,815

*--*

* Still active