McCarron Finds Magic Again

Another Chula Vista Handicap, another victory for jockey Chris McCarron.

For the fourth consecutive year, McCarron won the Grade II race when Radu Cool, despite racing wide throughout, held off 21-1 shot Supercilious to win by a half-length Sunday.

In providing trainer John Shirreffs with the richest victory of his career, the 7-2 fourth choice in the field of six fillies and mares remained unbeaten on the Del Mar main track.

The 5-year-old daughter of Carnivalay now has four victories in as many tries here and she definitely earned the latest one. She was four-wide most of the race. and was five-wide when she drew clear, so she had a right to have her margin cut into at the wire. She completed the 1 1/16 miles in 1:42 3/5.

“She loves Del Mar,” Shirreffs said. “For certain types of horses, this is a really good surface. She comes down here and she eats better and trains better.

“I knew she liked this track and I knew Twice The Vice or Jewel Princess wasn’t in there. I knew she was going to run her race. She’s trained very well.”

Supercilious, one of two entrants trained by Richard Mandella (the other, Chile Chatte, finished fourth at 7-2), was a half-length in front of Swoon River, the longest shot in the field at 26-1. Real Connection, the 2-1 second choice, lost for the 28th time in 29 starts since the beginning of 1996 when fifth Sunday. She beat only Toda Una Dama, the 9-5 favorite in her U.S. stakes debut.

However, her rider, Alex Solis, thought she had a legitimate excuse for her failure.

“She bled through the nostrils,” he said. At the quarter-pole, I thought we were going to win it. But, all of a sudden, she just folded up. She had a reason.”

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Trying to become the first horse since Lightning Mandate to sweep Del Mar’s three-race series for 3-year-olds, Fantastic Fellow is the 2-1 favorite against six opponents in the $300,000 Del Mar Derby.

Successful earlier in the meeting in both a division of the Oceanside Stakes and the La Jolla Handicap, Fantastic Fellow, owned by Ahmed Salman’s Thoroughbred Corporation and trained by Wayne Lukas, figures to get his main competition from Worldly Ways and Anet.

A troubled second in the La Jolla, Worldly Ways is the 3-1 third choice as he gets an extra sixteenth of a mile to work with in the 1 1/8-mile Derby. Anet, the 5-2 second choice, was second to Touch Gold in the Haskell Invitational in his last start, but will try turf for only the second time today.

The Derby will be run as the fourth race on the card and will be the final leg of a $1 Coast-to-Coast Triple, which also includes the Miss Woodford Stakes from Monmouth Park and the Springfield Stakes from Arlington International. The wager, which features a 10% takeout rate compared to the normal 20%, is part of America’s Day at the Races, a promotion of the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Assn.

Horse Racing Notes

Chris McCarron has six victories in the Chula Vista and Sunday’s was his 110th stakes triumph at Del Mar, a record. . . . Radu Cool’s victory was her ninth in 18 starts and pushed her earnings for her owners, the 505 Farms, to $513,718. . . . Rumpipumpy, an 8-1 shot, won the $200,000 Diana Handicap at Saratoga on Sunday. She was ridden by Jose Santos for owner Gaye Macrae and trainer Christophe Clement.