Sandpit’s Long Ride Will End Sunday in Hollywood Turf Cup

After 71,000 miles of shipping, most of it in the air, and 46 miles of running, most of it on grass, Sandpit will run his last mile and a half Sunday. Win or lose, the 8-year-old Brazilian-bred has earned a retirement trip to the pastures of Kentucky.

“He’s a tough old guy,” jockey Corey Nakatani said. “I haven’t been around anyone as tough as him.”

Nakatani rode Sandpit the first time trainer Richard Mandella saddled him--a second-place finish in an allowance race at Del Mar in 1994--and he’ll ride him for the 25th time in Sunday’s farewell, in the $500,000 Hollywood Turf Cup.

Although Sandpit has won only one of seven starts this year and is on a six-race losing streak, he still has a chance to exit with distinction. A win Sunday, worth $300,000, would push his earnings over the $4-million mark and put him in a group that includes only 13 other horses.

Most of them, led by Cigar with almost $10 million, ran in the rich Breeders’ Cup races, an opportunity denied Sandpit because his owner, Brazilian businessman Sergio Menezes, would have had to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to make him eligible.

Menezes, who bred Sandpit, and Mandella, who has trained the horse since his arrival in the U.S., have skipped few other spots. Besides his California campaigns, Sandpit has run twice in the Japan Cup, his best finish a fifth. And in one of his best races, he was third, behind Singspiel and stablemate Siphon, in this year’s Dubai World Cup.

He has run on four continents, amassing purses of almost $3.8 million with 13 wins, 11 seconds and six thirds in 38 races. Mandella said that no matter where he travels, one of the first questions he is asked is, “How’s old Sandpit doing?”

The long trip to Dubai and back--almost 17,000 miles--might have contributed to a dull sixth-place effort in May in the Hollywood Turf Handicap, a race Sandpit won in 1996. Since then, he has been third, behind stablemates Gentlemen and Siphon, in the Hollywood Gold Cup on dirt; second, behind Marlin, in the Arlington Million; and third, following the disqualification of second-place finisher Marlin, in the Oak Tree Turf Championship, a Santa Anita race that was Sandpit’s first important U.S. win, in 1994.

After Sunday, Sandpit will be sent to the Vinery in Midway, Ky., where he will begin his stud career in February.

The 17th Turf Cup has drawn 12 horses, three who couldn’t beat Chief Bearhart in the Breeders’ Cup Turf at Hollywood last month. Flag Down, third in the Breeders’ Cup, drew the outside post, and will be joined by Big Sky Chester, who was fifth, and Awad, who was ninth. Awad, a 7-year-old, beat Sandpit in the 1995 Arlington Million but has won only two races in the last two years.

Here is Sunday’s field, in post-position order with jockeys:

River Bay, Alex Solis; L’Africain Bleu, Brice Blanc; Prize Giving, Mike Smith; Embraceable You, Eddie Delahoussaye; Bonapartiste, Gerald Mosse; Awad, Pat Day; Big Sky Chester, Gary Stevens; Percutant, Kent Desormeaux; Sandpit, Nakatani; Egipcio, Chris McCarron; Prussian Blue, Frederic Sanchez, and Flag Down, Jose Santos. Percutant and Prussian Blue will run as an entry.

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No one was going to beat the undefeated Favorite Trick in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, but Nationalore might have finished better than third without a bad start that left him 16 lengths behind after the first quarter-mile.

At 40-1, Nationalore ran third, about 5 1/2 lengths behind Favorite Trick and only a neck behind Dawson’s Legacy, who was second at 78-1.

Delahoussaye, who said that Nationalore was unsettled in the gate and broke in the air at the start of the Breeders’ Cup, will ride the colt again Sunday in the $250,000 Hollywood Futurity, which also includes Johnbill and Double Honor, who were fifth and sixth, respectively, in the Breeders’ Cup.

The 11-horse field for the 1 1/16-mile race:

Doc Martin, Smith; Real Quiet, Desormeaux; Double Honor, Day; The Cynic, Goncalino Almeida; Arosa, Brandon Simpson; Johnbill, David Flores; Artax, McCarron; Buttons N Moes, Solis; Can Can Me, Felipe Martinez; Swiss Echo, Garrett Gomez, and Nationalore, Delahoussaye.

Johnbill, considered one of trainer Bob Baffert’s best prospects for next year’s Kentucky Derby, will run as an entry with Real Quiet, and Swiss Echo and Arosa also will be coupled in the betting.

Nationalore, a maiden after nine starts, has nevertheless earned almost $200,000, most of it for a surprising third in the $1-million Breeders’ Cup race. Before that, he was second five times, including a half-length loss to Ex Marks The Cop in the California Cup Juvenile.

Horse Racing Notes

Russell Baze rode Elusive Envoy to victory in the sixth race Friday night at Golden Gate Fields, giving the jockey 400 winners for the sixth consecutive year. No other rider has won 400 races in a year more than three times, successively or otherwise. From 1992 through 1996, Baze’s annual totals have been 433, 410, 415, 448 and 415. Baze won his 6,000th race at Golden Gate on Dec. 3. . . . Saddling Love Lock and Well Chosen today, trainer Wayne Lukas will try to win the Hollywood Starlet for the fourth consecutive year and the sixth time overall. Lukas’ last three Starlet winners were Sharp Cat, Cara Rafaela and Serena’s Song. . . . Career Collection, who also is running in the Starlet, was second, 8 1/2 lengths behind, in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies, which was won by Countess Diana, recently sidelined after having a chip removed from her left knee.

Very Subtle, a 3-year-old filly for trainer Mel Stute when she upset Groovy in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint at Hollywood Park in 1987, died Tuesday after suffering a broken pelvis in a paddock accident at Ashford Stud in Versailles, Ky. Very Subtle, who was owned by Ben Rochelle and Carl Grinstead, won 12 of 29 starts and earned $1.6 million.

Craig Perret is the winner of Santa Anita’s 1998 George Woolf Memorial Jockey Award. Perret, who has won more than 4,000 races, among them the 1990 Kentucky Derby with Unbridled, will be honored at the track during the season that opens Dec. 26. . . . Quote of the week, from Sheik Mohammed: “It would be ludicrous for my brothers and I to pretend we are down to our last three camels, but we can no longer go on as before.” The sheik, who probably owns more than 1,000 horses, was complaining about the purse structure in English racing.