Alyrob Ready to Ride After His Trip to Vet

Surgery for an entrapped epiglottis, which has helped make Alyrob a contender for today’s $1-million Santa Anita Derby, is usually considered routine. Within an hour, the horse is released from the on-track equine hospital and is back in its stall. With the bothersome thin membrane severed and his breathing no longer impaired, a horse can resume training within two weeks.

That was the case with Alyrob, who had the $1,500 throat surgery by veterinarian Greg Ferraro on March 5. That was also the case with Alyrob’s sire, Alysheba, who had his epiglottis freed about five weeks before he won the 1987 Kentucky Derby.

“After we had that done, he never had as much as a pimple on him,” said Jack Berg, who trained Alysheba.

But that is also the type of surgery that ended the career of By Land By Sea, one of the country’s best fillies in 1988 before she flipped during the operation. That caused veterinarian Scotty Merrell to accidentally poke a hole in her epiglottis.

By Land By Sea, winner of 10 of 13 starts, including the Apple Blossom Handicap at Oaklawn Park and the Milady Handicap at Santa Anita, would have been a capable opponent for the undefeated Personal Ensign in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff at Churchill Downs at the end of the year. But she never raced again after the surgery.

Gary Jones, who trained By Land By Sea, didn’t blame Merrell.

“Scotty had done the work on Alysheba,” Jones said Friday. “He had done the same kind of operation on my filly the year before [1987]. The trouble was, there was a lot of blood the first time, and she was a smart horse and remembered that when we went in there the second time. That’s why she got so excited. She was too smart for her own good.

“The owners [including Brereton Jones, governor of Kentucky] screamed like crazy. I told them to cool it. ‘You didn’t say anything when he operated the first time, and she went on to win $600,000,’ I told them. Scotty was a hero then, and now they were making him out to be the goat. The filly reared and turned over, and that wasn’t his fault.”

Jones says that the utensils for clearing a horse’s epiglottis are much more sophisticated than they were eight years ago.

“My horse is better now than he’s ever been,” trainer Wally Dollase said of Alyrob, who’s the third choice, behind the Wayne Lukas duo of Honour And Glory and Prince Of Thieves, on the Santa Anita Derby’s morning line.

In his final workout for the race, Alyrob ran half a mile in a solid :48 1/5 at Hollywood Park on Wednesday. Both Dollase and Corey Nakatani, who rode him, were surprised that the gelding worked that fast. Watching the move, Dollase thought that Alyrob’s time might have been :51, and getting off the horse, Nakatani said that it seemed like a 50-second work.

The worst thing about Alyrob is that he’s a confirmed gawker.

“Sometimes you think he’s going to stop and try to count everybody in the grandstand,” said Dollase, who will run Alyrob with blinkers today, the suggestion from Craig Dollase, the trainer’s son and chief assistant.

Nakatani, Santa Anita’s leading jockey and Wally Dollase’s son-in-law, will ride Alyrob in a race for the first time. Chris McCarron, who will be astride Cavonnier today, won the Kentucky Derby with Alysheba and rode Alyrob in his only four starts--a third and a first in maiden races at Hollywood Park late last year, an allowance win at Santa Anita in January and fourth in the Santa Catalina Stakes on Feb. 4.

Alyrob was soundly beaten in the Santa Catalina, and although Dollase feels that Prince of Thieves is the best 3-year-old training locally, he didn’t think that Lukas’ colt was 5 1/4 lengths better than his horse.

“At first we were blaming the track,” Dollase said. “That’s the automatic thing to do, isn’t it? But then after his next work, we saw that he couldn’t breathe. Then when Greg [Ferraro] went in there for the epiglottis, he found an ulcer too.”

In March 1995, Dollase bought Alyrob, an unraced 2-year-old, for $50,000 at a Barretts auction in Pomona. At Del Mar last summer, Alyrob was not progressing the way Dollase hoped, so the horse was castrated. The only geldings to win the Santa Anita Derby have been Dinard in 1991, Sweepida in 1940 and Fairy Hill in 1937, the third year for the race.

Dollase trained a champion gelding, Itsallgreektome, who was voted the best male on grass in 1990.

“We gelded The Greek for the same reason we gelded Alyrob,” Dollase said. “There just wasn’t enough room under there for them to run comfortably. Before we cut him, Alyrob was just miserable.”

Horse Racing Notes

The Santa Anita Derby trainer watch: Wally Dollase (Alyrob) ranks fifth nationally with $1.3 million in purses, even though he has had only 41 starters. . . . Ron McAnally (Matty G) settled for second place with favored Antespend in the $250,000 Fantasy at Oaklawn Park Friday when Escena, ridden by Pat Day, trained by Bill Mott and owned by Allen Paulson, won by seven lengths.

Charlie Whittingham (Corker) hired Corey Black to ride because Kent Desormeaux is riding favored Sleep Easy in the $150,000 Miss America Handicap at Golden Gate Fields. . . . Wayne Lukas (Honour And Glory, Prince Of Thieves) has won 19 races worth $1 million or more, eight more than Shug McGaughey and nine more than Whittingham. . . . Exotic Wood will miss Sunday’s Santa Lucia Handicap after bumping her head in her stall. The injury is not serious. . . . Miraloma, out since last May because of a knee injury after winning her only two races by 9 1/2 lengths, returns today in the Santa Paula Stakes. . . . Lit De Justice will be trying to win the Potrero Grande Breeders’ Cup Handicap for the second consecutive year. . . . Corey Nakatani, serving a suspension that runs through Sunday, can ride Alyrob because of California’s designated-race rule, but Alex Solis is replacing him on Lit De Justice.

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Today’s Santa Anita Derby

* Post: 2:10 p.m.

* TV: 5:10 p.m., Channel 7

* Distance: 1 1/8 miles on dirt

* Weights: 120 pounds each

* First place: $600,000

* Second place: $200,000

* Third place: $120,000

POST POSITIONS

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Horse Jockey Odds 1. Cavonnier McCarron 8 2. Alyrob Nakatani 3 3. Matty G Solis 5 4. E C’s Dream Pincay 30 5. Prince Of Thieves Sellers 5-2 6. Corker Black 20 7. Super Mining Antley 30 8. Honour And Glory Stevens 9-5

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Triple Crown Ratings

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No. Horse Starts 1 2 3 Earnings 1. Unbridled’s Song 6 3 2 0 $923,000 2. Ide 8 6 0 1 $303,760 3. Honour and Glory 7 4 1 1 $436,102 4. Editor’s Note 13 3 4 1 $385,534 5. Diligence 7 4 2 0 $214,900 6. Prince of Thieves 4 2 0 0 $97,250 7. Roar 8 3 1 2 $95,470 8. Cobra King 8 5 1 0 $256,825 9. Victory Speech 8 4 1 3 $116,162 10. Louis Quatorze 7 3 2 0 $151,000

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Advisory panel for The Times’ Triple Crown Ratings: Racing historian Jim Bolus; Tom Durkin, track announcer in New York and Florida; and Chris Lincoln, racing telecaster for ESPN.