Heavy on the Charm

To say that Silver Charm is ready to run in today’s season-opening Malibu Stakes at Santa Anita would be an understatement.

“The horse looked to me like he was ready last summer at Del Mar,” said horse owner Ed Friendly of Rancho Santa Fe. “They had to strangle him down there to hold him back. I don’t have a horse for the Malibu, but even if I did, I wouldn’t be running.”

Friendly seems to be in the minority. Despite Silver Charm’s gilt-edged credentials--this year he was the first horse to win the first two legs of the Triple Crown, the Kentucky Derby and Preakness, since Sunday Silence in 1989--10 horses will line up against him in the Malibu, a seven-furlong, $200,000 race that launches Santa Anita’s 61st season. Some of the rival trainers feel that the gray colt is vulnerable, making his first start since a second-place finish to Touch Gold in the Belmont Stakes, which was 202 days ago.

“His first time back, we might have a chance,” said Doug Peterson, who trains Apalachee Ridge. “We’re not going to get him after this.” Apalachee Ridge, bred and owned by John Forsythe, ran six furlongs in 1:07 2/5 this month to break a Hollywood Park record.

Since returning to serious training, Silver Charm has reeled off a series of workouts that could only be labeled as fast and faster. Last week, after his colt had worked from the gate and run six furlongs in 1:10 4/5, his wisecracking trainer, Bob Baffert, said: “This horse in the gate was like Clark Kent in a phone booth.”

Gary Stevens, who rode Silver Charm to victory in the Derby and Preakness, was aboard Bob and Beverly Lewis’ colt for that workout. Catching himself before he predicted too much for this brawnier, hungrier 3-year-old, Stevens said:

“Of course there’s nothing that gets a horse fitter than a race, but seven-eighths of a mile will be perfect for him this time. If [the rival trainers] think they’ve picked the right time to beat him, I’ll say that they might not have picked the right time.”

Silver Charm’s season ended in mid-July. He was training for the Haskell Handicap, a Monmouth Park race that would have given him the chance to avenge Touch Gold’s win by three-quarters of a length in the Belmont. Silver Charm ran a temperature and had a high white-blood-cell count. These were symptoms not unlike a condition that curtailed Silver Charm’s 2-year-old season, after he won the Del Mar Futurity in September 1996.

Baffert announced that Silver Charm would get a long rest.

“It was Bob’s decision,” Bob Lewis said. “Beverly and I were in full accord. We’ve never considered retiring him. Our fondest hope and desire is to give the racing industry a great star. We’d like to run him [in 1999] as a 5-year-old too, but these are fragile animals and that’s a long way down the road.”

Silver Charm, who was bought privately by the Lewises for $85,000 as an unraced 2-year-old, was not eligible for last month’s Breeders’ Cup at Hollywood Park. His breeder hadn’t paid the $500 nomination fee that was due before the horse’s first birthday. Running in the $4-million Classic would have required a rush to race day by Baffert and a $480,000 supplementary payment, something the Lewises wouldn’t have done willingly.

“Sure, I would have liked to have to run him in the Breeders’ Cup, but it wasn’t in the cards,” Baffert said. “We did the right thing by stopping on this horse. I like to give all of my horses a break. It keeps them going. Look at The Big Hoss [Letthebighossroll]. We treated him right and he ran until he was a 9-year-old and earned a million dollars.”

Bob Lewis said that Silver Charm has grown about three inches and must weigh 1,250 pounds. The white-faced colt has regained the more than 100 pounds he lost during the Triple Crown campaign, and more.

“He’s such a handful now,” Lewis said. “They have to double-shank him [use two handlers] when they take him to the track now.”

Stevens has noted a personality change in Silver Charm.

“He’s matured mentally as well as physically,” the jockey said. “He was always aggressive under me, in the races. But now he’s aggressive in another way. The other morning, when we were out on the track, he reached over and tried to take a hunk of meat out of the [lead] pony. I’ve never seen him do that before.”

The owners of Skip Away, trainer Sonny Hine and his wife Carolyn, paid the $480,000 to run in the Breeders’ Cup Classic, won the race and are now co-favored with the 2-year-old, Favorite Trick, to win horse-of-the-year honors. But some voters think that Silver Charm deserves the title even though he only raced half the year.

“The six-length romp [in the Breeders’ Cup] made Skip Away ‘Horse of the Day,’ ” wrote Clyde Hirt in the publication The Daily Racing Program. “ . . .It may have slipped some observers’ minds that Silver Charm missed sweeping the Triple Crown by three-quarters of a length. The 3-year-old attracted more than 70,000 to Belmont Park, a track that has trouble drawing 4,500 on a daily basis.”

Touch Gold won the Haskell, but after that his season fell apart as trainer David Hofmans battled to keep a damaged hoof intact. Touch Gold finished last in the Breeders’ Cup Classic, and is certain to be outvoted by Silver Charm for the 3-year-old colt title.

After the Malibu, Baffert ambitiously plans to run Silver Charm in the rest of Santa Anita’s Strub series, which includes the $300,000 San Fernando Stakes on Jan. 17 and the $500,000 Strub on Feb. 7. Also on Baffert’s schedule is the $1-million Santa Anita Handicap on March 7. Only five horses have swept the Strub series, the most recent Precisionist in 1985. The only horses to sweep the Strub and also win the Big ‘Cap have been Round Table in 1958 and Spectacular Bid in 1980. They both went on to horse-of-the-year titles.

“The day we won the Derby,” Bob Lewis said, “[trainer] Wayne Lukas threw his arms around me and said, ‘Bob, play it for all it’s worth.’ That’s what we’re doing. We didn’t win the Triple Crown, but it was just a blessing to run in all three races. After all, only one other horse [Free House] did.”

Horse Racing Notes

Malibu contender Crypto Star hasn’t run since finishing fourth in the Belmont. He won the Louisiana and Arkansas derbies and was fifth in the Kentucky Derby. Trained by Wally Dollase, who took over from Wayne Catalano after the colt was shipped West, Crypto Star hasn’t sprinted since he was third in his first start. . . . Figure this: The Malibu, a prep for the Strub, is ranked a Grade I race by the Graded Stakes Committee. The Strub is now a Grade II. . . . Jack W. Martin, who always said that one of his biggest wins was with Flying Rythm in the 1948 Hollywood Oaks, died Sunday after suffering a heart attack. Martin, who was 73, rode from the 1940s into the 1960s and spent much of his time in California and at Caliente in Tijuana.

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Santa Anita at a Glance

MALIBU STAKES

* Race: Seven furlongs

* Purse: $200,000

* The field: 10 horses, featuring Silver Charm.

Charmed Life

Silver Charm’s career record: *--*

Starts 1st 2nd 3rd Purses 9 5 4 0 $1,778,500

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Date Track Race Jockey Fin. Aug. 10, 1996 Del Mar Maiden David Flores 2 Aug. 24, 1996 Del Mar Maiden Flores 1 Sept. 11, 1996 Del Mar Del Mar Futurity Flores 1 Feb. 8, 1997 Santa Anita San Vicente Chris McCarron 1 March 16, 1997 Santa Anita San Felipe McCarron 2 April 5, 1997 Santa Anita Santa Anita Derby Gary Stevens 2 May 3, 1997 Churchill Downs Kentucky Derby Stevens 1 May 17, 1997 Pimlico Preakness Stevens 1 June 7, 1997 Belmont Park Belmont Stevens 2

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