Ellis’ Patience Is Rewarded: Pharma Wins

Marty Wygod and Ron Ellis have been racing horses together for more than 10 years, long enough for Wygod to know that his trainer’s best virtue is patience.

“Ron does an exceptional job,” Wygod said. “He has a way of bringing horses up to their top form for their most important races.”

Wygod, who employs several trainers, tries to send his horses to the conditioners that fit them best, and Ellis and the 5-year-old mare Pharma are a perfect match. A horse with a history of ailments--an ulcerated throat, a splint injury--Pharma has run only 14 times in a troubled career. A trainer without patience would find her difficult to live with.

Ellis thought that he had Pharma ready to run last summer at Del Mar, but that didn’t work out. He finally got her to the races in November at Hollywood Park, and on Saturday, in her 14th race, all that careful handling paid off. Pharma went wire to wire for Chris McCarron at Santa Anita, winning the $155,650 Santa Ana Handicap and scoring her first Grade I victory.

She was 4-1, the third betting choice in a field of five, but Ellis and Wygod didn’t think they were asking too much in running Pharma against Angel In My Heart and Matiara. Angel In My Heart finished second, beaten by 1 3/4 lengths, and she was two lengths better than Matiara, the 7-10 favorite.

Wygod bought 50% of Pharma from her owner and breeder, Allen Paulson, for $500,000 in the fall of 1994. The daughter of Theatrical and Committed has run only six times since then, but Ellis knew that her last race before Saturday, when she finished fifth in the Buena Vista Handicap on March 2, was a throw-out.

“She had such a bad trip,” Ellis said. “We were trying to rate her, and she got trapped behind horses.”

Wygod said that at one point in the race, Pharma stumbled and almost went down. On Saturday, there was nothing in front of her at any time. Carrying 116 pounds, four less than Angel In My Heart and Matiara, Pharma ran 1 1/8 miles on grass in 1:49, earned $95,650 and paid $10.20 to win.

“The way Matiara won last time, I didn’t know if I could beat her today,” McCarron said. “But one thing was relatively certain, and that was my trip. I was the only speed in there. It was just a question of how much they would allow me to slow it down. Ron [Ellis] has done a great job of getting her to save her energy for the last two furlongs, and she was tough today.”

Ellis, who also trains Exotic Wood and Twice the Vice, the Santa Margarita Handicap winner, for Wygod, has won with 16 of 36 starters at the meet, an exceptional .444 winning percentage. Among the leading trainers, Wally Dollase is next with 35%.

Gary Stevens, who rode both Angel In My Heart and Matiara to wins in their previous races, was aboard Matiara Saturday.

“They were walking the first part, and my horse just can’t quicken up like that,” Stevens said. “They sprinted home from the three-eighths pole. Chris [McCarron] did a good job of slowing it down. I chose to keep my filly’s style, and it just didn’t pan out.”

The on-track crowd totaled 24,857, about 10,000 more than the previous Saturday, and one of the attractions was a match race between horses ridden by Stevens and Julie Krone, who made her Santa Anita debut after winning more than 3,000 races, a record for a woman, at Eastern tracks.

Stevens won that confrontation by putting Krone in a position that was similar to what McCarron and Pharma put him in with Matiara in the Santa Ana. Busy Banana and Stevens broke on top, shook off a challenge by Krone and her horse, Richard Of England, at the eighth pole and won by 2 3/4 lengths. With win betting only, favored Busy Banana paid $2.80, running 1 1/16 miles in 1:45.

“It [a match race] is a lot like working horses in the morning,” Stevens said. “If you can get your horse’s head stuck out in front, a lot of times the second-best horse will win. It’s a great promotion for the jockeys, but I think that what it all boils down to is that it’s 99% the horse. Anyway, it was a blast. The crowd got into it, and it was a lot of fun.”

Krone, who will ride at Bay Meadows today, rode Bis Cat, longest shot in the field, in the Santa Ana. They ran second behind Pharma for a while before finishing last.

Of the match race, Krone said: “When I turned for home, my horse was just plain tired. But he did make one little run, and that was off heart alone. He just couldn’t sustain his run. Aside from that, my trip to California was a blast.”

*

Horse Racing Notes

Ron Ellis said that Exotic Wood will run in either the Santa Lucia Handicap at Santa Anita on April 7 or the Bed O’ Roses the next day at Aqueduct. Weight assignments and weather are some of the factors. . . . Twice The Vice is heading for the Apple Blossom at Oaklawn Park on April 12. . . . Tiger Talk, a 3-year-old stakes winner that Ellis trains for the Mace Siegel family, is scheduled to run in the Gotham at Aqueduct next Saturday.

Windsharp, a 5-year-old mare, is the 2-1 morning-line favorite against colts in today’s San Luis Rey Stakes. . . . She’ll be ridden by Eddie Delahoussaye, who was at Bay Meadows in San Mateo on Saturday, riding favored Halo Sunshine to a 3 1/2-length win over Budroyale in the $200,000 Golden State Derby. . . . In other races for 3-year-olds, Ide won his seventh in a row, holding on by a head against the late-running Blow Out in the $100,000 Rebel Stakes at Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs, Ark.; and after a long stewards’ inquiry, Semoran’s four-length win over Connecting Terms was allowed to stand in the $300,000 Remington Park Derby in Oklahoma City. Russell Baze rode Semoran for trainer Bob Baffert, who said that the options for his colt are the Blue Grass at Keeneland and the Arkansas Derby at Oaklawn, both on April 13.

Baffert also trains Cavonnier, who’s a probable for the Santa Anita Derby on April 6. Other probables for Santa Anita are Afleetaffair, Alyrob, Matty G, Odyle, Ready To Order, Smithfield and the Wayne Lukas-trained pair of Honour And Glory and Prince Of Thieves. . . . Of the other Kentucky Derby candidates in Lukas’ barn, Editor’s Note is headed for the Blue Grass; Grindstone will run in either the Blue Grass or the Arkansas Derby; and Victory Speech and Dr. Caton are scheduled to run in the Jim Beam at Turfway Park next Saturday. . . . Jockey David Flores, who has had drug problems, will be permitted to resume riding on April 3. After testing positive for cocaine, Flores was suspended on Feb. 18 by the Santa Anita stewards, who said Saturday that he’s completed a residential rehabilitation program.