Going Bananas on Opening Day

Outside the main grandstand at Fairplex Park in Pomona, there’s a trained monkey that will take your money. Nickels, dimes, quarters, it doesn’t matter, he’ll pocket anything.

For a dollar, he’ll shake your hand. Other than that, you get nothing.

Or, if that pales, you can enter the grandstand and find another way to part with your cash. On Thursday, the opening day of the 58th Fairplex race meeting, unless you bet on Silken Magic or Fast as aspeednbulit in the two feature races, you might as well have given the monkey your savings.

Silken Magic, ridden by Kent Desormeaux, won the first stake of the 19-day meeting, the $50,000-Bustles And Bows, covering the 6 1/2 furlongs in 1 minute 17 1/5 seconds to beat David Flores aboard Clever Princess by one length. Omar Berrio brought Run For B And W home a distant third in the five-filly field.

Flores broke smartly with Clever Princess and led until they turned into the stretch, when Desormeaux made his move.

“She ran into so much trouble last time, I figured that if I just had a target turning for home [I’d have a chance],” he said. “Around here, you don’t want to let them get away, you’ve got to chase them around both turns just to stay in contention. In the straight, she was just stalking, so I was pretty confident.”

Trained by Vladimir Cerin, the top trainer in the last two Fairplex meetings, the chestnut 2-year-old paid $4.20, $2.20 and $2.20 for her third victory in five starts and earned $27,500 for owner Joe Sires.

And when Chris Antley won the $60,000 Foothill Stakes two races later aboard the Cerin-trained Fastasaspeednbulit, beating favorite Academyawardwinner and jockey David Flores by a head, it was the Yugoslav-born trainer’s 22nd victory in the last 39 racing days at Fairplex.

That’s no monkey business.