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TIMES STAFF WRITER

The most interesting races on today’s Del Mar card are simulcasts.

About two hours after Skip Away tries for his fifth win of 1995 in the $750,000 Travers at Saratoga, California-based fillies and mares will try to continue their domination of the $500,000 Beverly D at Arlington International.

In the first eight runnings of the 1 3/16-mile turf race, horses who made their last start at either Hollywood Park or Del Mar won the Grade I.

Of the 10 entered in the Beverly D, five are locally based. Matiara, fresh off a powerful win in the Ramona Handicap on Aug. 3 at Del Mar, is the 5-2 second choice behind the Aga Khan-owned entry of Khalisa and Timarida. Trained by Richard Mandella for owner Alec Head, Matiara will again be ridden by Corey Nakatani, who won the 1995 Beverly D with Possibly Perfect.

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The four others from this area are Alpride, third in this race last year; Flagbird, Olimpia Dukakis and Auriette. Chris McCarron will be aboard Alpride, Eddie Delahoussaye will ride Flagbird, and Kent Desormeaux has the call on Auriette.

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In the Travers, Skip Away will try to get the best of Louis Quatorze for the fifth time in six 1996 meetings when they head a field of seven in the 1 1/4-mile race.

Since his debacle in the Kentucky Derby, Skip Away has two wins and two seconds. Louis Quatorze has gone two for three since he finished 16th at Churchill Downs.

Wayne Lukas, who won two of the last five Travers, will send out both Editor’s Note, who was 18 1/4 lengths behind Louis Quatorze in the Jim Dandy over the same track three weeks ago, and the improving Dr. Caton, who gave Skip Away a battle in the recent Haskell before losing by a length.

Will’s Way and the entry of Prince Heaven and Secreto De Estado round out the field.

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