Santa Anita Reprimands Starter

Tucker Slender, the official starter for races at Santa Anita, has been reprimanded by the track after his prerace whipping of Lit De Justice, one of the favorites in last Saturday’s $202,400 Potrero Grande Breeders’ Cup Handicap.

C.N. Ray, who races Lit De Justice, said Cliff Goodrich, president of the track, told him Slender would be disciplined. Ray met with Santa Anita officials earlier this week.

Goodrich said Thursday he couldn’t deny that Slender was being reprimanded, but he wouldn’t be more specific. “Company policy prevents me from commenting about a personnel matter,” Goodrich said.

Ray and his trainer, Jenine Sahadi, estimated that Slender, who was struggling to get Lit De Justice loaded into the gate, buggy whipped the horse between eight and 12 times. Lit De Justice, a premier sprinter who has earned more than $700,000 and been syndicated for the 1997 breeding season at an estimated $2 million, finished fourth, almost eight lengths behind the winner, Abaginone. Lit De Justice was the 9-5 second choice, behind favored Abaginone.

Ray, Sahadi and Slender are not in disagreement that Lit De Justice is a difficult horse. Since last fall, Lit De Justice has been blindfolded going into the gate. The blindfold seemed to calm him down in October at Belmont Park, where he ran third in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint. “What’s outrageous,” Ray said, “is that Jenine and Slender have had an agreement since last fall about how all of her horses are supposed to be treated. They agreed that if excessive force is needed to load a horse, then Slender should ask the stewards to scratch the horse. With Lit De Justice, Slender violated that agreement, because what he did was certainly excessive force.”

Slender has been the starter at Santa Anita for about 12 years and is also the starter at Del Mar.

“I don’t want to get into this,” he said. “Jenine and I just don’t see eye to eye. She doesn’t school this horse enough, and she doesn’t school her horses enough across the board. I’ve handled a lot of good horses for all the trainers--people like Gary Jones, Richard Mandella and Charlie Whittingham--and when there’s been a problem, they go with what needs to be done.”

Sahadi said Lit De Justice should have been scratched Saturday. “What happened affected the horse’s performance,” she said. “And he’s the kind of horse who will remember this treatment down the road. It had to be a frightening thing, being whipped like that while he still had the blindfold on.”

Ray said he has a track videotape of Lit De Justice being whipped. Ray, who has met with the Santa Anita stewards, isn’t sure whether he’ll file a complaint with the California Horse Racing Board. One of the stewards, George Slender, is Tucker Slender’s brother, and he said that he would disqualify himself if a complaint is filed.