Stakes Raised at Santa Anita

Event Of The Year is running on what many horseplayers consider the event of the year: opening day at Santa Anita.

The Arcadia track, under new ownership for the second time in as many years, launches its 62nd season with a solid field for the featured Malibu Stakes.

The $126-million purchase of Santa Anita by Frank Stronach, the Austrian-born, Canadian-based auto parts manufacturer, happened too recently--only two weeks ago--to have a major impact at this meet, but most horsemen are bullish about what promises to be a new era in Southern California racing.

“This man isn’t stepping up to the plate looking for a base on balls,” trainer Richard Mandella said. “He’ll be going for the grand slam.”

Santa Anita’s stakes program will offer almost $11 million in purses, including the $1-million Santa Anita Handicap on March 6 and the $750,000 Santa Anita Derby on April 3, and across-the-board purses will skyrocket in 1999 because of legislative tax relief.

In January, Santa Anita will join the state-wide satellite network in offering long-overdue betting on full-card simulcasts from major tracks such as Gulfstream and Aqueduct. It appears that Stronach, 66, has come along at the right time.

“A bunch of us--mostly people he knew--were called to a meeting a while back to hear about his plans,” Mandella said. “What we heard was all positive. Here you had a guy sitting there, [owner-breeder] Marty Wygod, who had put up $140 million for the place and had his bid turned down, and even he was enthusiastic. That should tell you something.”

Stronach, an owner and breeder of more than 800 horses, bought Santa Anita from the Meditrust Cos. through a division of his Magna International, a world-wide company that employs more than 49,000. By the late 1980s, racing in the United States had dug itself a deep hole, and Santa Anita, rough around the edges and its fan base shrinking, has needed a white knight.

But while gold dust might be overflowing his saddlebags, the silver-haired Stronach cautions that he won’t be signing any blank checks.

“I want to make it the best racetrack in the world,” he said. “But I don’t want to be thought of as a savior. Santa Anita is an investment, and it has to be run as a business.”

Mandella, meanwhile, is looking to make an impact in 1999 with Event Of The Year, who was undefeated and about to run in this year’s Kentucky Derby when he injured his right knee during a workout at Churchill Downs only eight days before the race.

Jerry Hollendorfer, who trains for Event Of The Year’s breeders and owners, John and Betty Mabee, in Northern California, was in charge of the Seattle Slew-Classic Event colt then. After Event Of The Year’s knee surgery, the Mabees sent the colt to Mandella at Del Mar during the summer meet, with a Santa Anita campaign in mind. It was Mandella, four years ago, who took over the training of Best Pal, another already-established standout from the Mabee stable.

Event Of The Year’s credentials might be impeccable, but they are flimsy compared to Best Pal, who finished a $5.6-million career under Mandella, then died last month, about three years into retirement. Event Of The Year ran only four times before his knee gave way.

Against soft opposition at Bay Meadows, he won three races in a gallop, then traveled to Turfway Park in Northern Kentucky to win the Jim Beam Stakes by five lengths five weeks before the Derby. At the time of the injury, he was probably the third choice for the Derby, behind Indian Charlie, the Santa Anita Derby winner, and Halory Hunter. Bob Baffert, who trained Indian Charlie but won the Derby with his other horse, Real Quiet, said that Event Of The Year was the horse he feared most going into the race.

“I had heard that he might have even gone off favored in the Derby,” Mandella said of Event Of The Year. “He’s a good-looking horse, and he’s done everything expected of him since he’s come back. Not many come back from this kind of injury, but they put a screw in his knee, and that could be the difference.”

The 45-minute operation was performed April 25, the day after the injury, by Larry Bramlage, a member of the veterinarian team at the Rood & Riddle Equine Hospital in Lexington, Ky.

“This was what we call a slab fracture,” Bramlage said. “We put the screw through the slab, which is standard treatment.”

Bramlage also inserted a knee screw this summer on Jersey Girl, a 3-year-old filly who was undefeated in seven races this year. Jersey Girl is expected to return to the races this winter at Gulfstream Park.

“Event Of The Year did a nice job of healing,” Bramlage said. “It was a better-than-average [healing] job by a more-than-average horse.”

After the operation, Event Of The Year spent a month recuperating in his stall. Then he was walked for a month. In California, he has been under the care of veterinarian Rick Arthur.

“He’s got a good trainer and a good vet out there,” Bramlage said. “Now what we need is some good luck. Event Of The Year has still got some maturing to do. Because of all the time he lost, he’s got some catching up to do physically.”

At Santa Anita today, Mandella’s colt will be tossed into a field that includes Sea Of Secrets, a stakes winner last season before he was waylaid by a lung infection; Artax, who beat Real Quiet at Santa Anita before he was injured while finishing 13th in the Derby; and sprint expert Old Topper, whose 87- year-old trainer, Noble Threewitt, was winning races when Santa Anita opened in 1934. Old Topper has two wins and a second in three starts at the Malibu distance of seven furlongs.

“It’s a tough bunch,” Mandella said. “They’re all good horses, and on his best day, that Old Topper can beat anybody.”

Horse Racing Notes

Cavonnier, who hasn’t run since he suffered a tendon injury in the 1996 Belmont Stakes, is among seven horses entered in Sunday’s $70,000 Ack Ack Stakes at one mile on dirt. Cavonnier won the 1996 Santa Anita Derby and lost by a nose to Grindstone in the Kentucky Derby. . . . In Sunday’s $200,000 La Brea Stakes, for 3-year-old fillies the top horses are Magical Allure and Brulay. Magical Allure was undefeated in six starts before Belle’s Flag beat her in the California Cup Matron Handicap at Santa Anita on Oct. 31. Brulay has won four of six starts. . . . Hanuman Highway, second by a head to Victory Gallop in the Arkansas Derby, runs in the fourth race today, making his first start since a seventh-place finish in the Kentucky Derby.

Santa Anita Meeting

WHEN

Today-April 19

MOST POST TIMES

Today: Noon

Weekends/Holidays:

12:30

Weekdays: 1 p.m.

RACING DAYS

84

SCHEDULE

Usually Wednesdays through Sundays, with special Monday racing Dec. 28, Jan. 18 (Martin Luther King Day), Feb. 15 (Presidents’ Day), April 5 and April 19 (closing day). No racing on three Wednesday dates: Jan. 20, Feb. 17 and April 14.