Investment of $3,000 a Good One

Our Summer Bid, a 5-year-old mare who was bought as a yearling for $3,000, hiked her earnings to $396,577 Sunday with an upset win in the $130,100 Las Flores Handicap at Santa Anita.

Ridden by Jose Silva, Our Summer Bid outfought Track Gal in a long stretch duel to win by a half-length. Advancing Star, the 2-1 favorite, finished third, beaten by two lengths.

Our Summer Bid ran six furlongs in 1:09, paying $35.20 to win at the second-longest odds in the six-horse field. Carrying 114 pounds, six less than Track Gal, she earned $80,100 for her eighth win in 25 starts.

Trainer Sam Scolamieri and his partner, Jerry Woolery, bought Our Summer Bid at the dispersal sale of the estate of Earl Scheib.

“Her whole family was in that sale,” Scolamieri said. “Including the dam [Summer Sorrows Bid], who looked like she was about 19 hands high. I’m sorry now that we didn’t buy more of them.”

Running a modest stable out of the San Luis Rey Downs training center north of Del Mar, Scolamieri won three races--two of them by Our Summer Bid--from 52 starts last year. The 32-year-old Silva, who rides much of Scolamieri’s stock, won four races out of 133 mounts in 1996.

“I’ve been with Jose for the last two or three years,” Scolamieri said. “A jockey gets a label, and then he gets stuck with it, but as far as I’m concerned, Jose is a bona fide rider.”

The first time Our Summer Bid ran, at Hollywood Park, she could have been claimed for $32,000. She’s especially good right now, with two wins and two seconds in her last four starts, and Sunday she gave the 45-year-old Scolamieri his first graded stakes victory in a 20-year training career.

The plan was for Our Summer Bid to stalk the leaders, but instead she vied for the lead with Track Gal and Kent Desormeaux. Then the winner and Silva got through on the inside for the stretch run.

“I never give up the rail, particularly in a stakes race,” Desormeaux said. “But, quite frankly, I saw who it was and wasn’t too worried about her. I’ll be damned if that wasn’t the one that beat me.”