Shipping Business Booming

Early in the day, Frank Stronach--the new owner of Santa Anita--said that in a week or two he’d be shipping in a couple dozen horses from his Florida farm.

After looking at the results of Santa Anita’s 62nd opener, Stronach might have been on the phone Saturday night, telling his people to get those horses here ASAP. If one day is any criterion, Santa Anita will be a haven for shippers. A French import won the third race. Another horse from France won the seventh. Then Run Man Run, a 3-year-old gelding that had been kicking around the allowance circuit in New York, won the $200,000 Malibu Stakes, disposing of several more accomplished opponents and adding another chapter to an afternoon of upsets.

On paper, where the races are never run, trainer Anthony Margotta’s entry in the Malibu with Run Man Run didn’t make much sense. This was a lightly raced horse who always ran well, but had never started in a stake. He seemed overmatched against undefeated Event Of The Year, stakes-winning Sea Of Secrets and Artax, and battle-tested Old Topper, who had shown that the Malibu’s seven furlongs is his ideal distance.

After Run Man Run’s 1 1/2-length win over Artax--Event Of The Year was third, two more lengths back--Margotta was seen leaving the winner’s circle, arm in arm with Stronach and a blue box of Santa Anita bric-a-brac in his other hand.

“I’m going up to drink some champagne and celebrate this,” Margotta, 36, said.

Margotta, who was born in New Jersey and grew up not far from the Meadowlands, has been in the horse-racing game since high school, but the only other Grade I race he had won before the Malibu was Saratoga’s Whitney with Brunswick in 1993.

Run Man Run, ridden by the only jockey who has ever been on him--Mike Luzzi--paid $29.20 and earned $120,000 for an ownership group that includes Margotta. Run Man Run also more than doubled his career purse total to $233,000 with his fifth victory in seven starts.

“Winning a Grade I on opening day at Santa Anita is very important to me,” Margotta said. “[The Strub series] set up right for this horse. Also, for racing, I thought it was a good idea--East Coast and West Coast could get together. My clients are very good people who understand racing and do it for pleasure.”

The rest of the Strub series, for horses that were foaled in 1995, consists of the $300,000 San Fernando at 1 1/16 miles on Jan. 16 and the $500,000 Strub at 1 1/8 miles on Feb. 6.

Run Man Run, a son of Theatrical, winner of the Breeders’ Cup Turf and North American grass champion in 1987, has already run once on turf, and Margotta suggested that he might be able to find a spot for the horse on Santa Anita’s grass course as well.

Stronach’s Magna International, an auto-parts manufacturer, paid $126 million to buy Santa Anita about two weeks ago. Stronach said Saturday that he plans to put $50 million more into Santa Anita, which will include a five-year plan to renovate the track’s 55 barns.

“We’d like to have big crowds here every day, not just opening day,” Stronach said. “Whatever we do, if we neglect live racing, we will have a problem.”

Day-after-Christmas openers on Saturdays usually account for big crowds, and this turnout of 42,348 was the largest since 1994, when almost 47,000 came on a Monday. Counting off-track pools, the handle of $18.5 million was a record for a Santa Anita opener, topping last year’s total by about $400,000.

A parade of longshots accounted for a carryover of about $212,000 for today’s pick-six pool. With short-priced horses so vulnerable, it was no day for Event Of The Year, favored at 7-5, to seek his fifth consecutive win while making his first start in nine months.

“It was a big thing to get [the comeback race] behind us,” trainer Richard Mandella said. “He got hot and washy in paddock. That’s that Seattle Slew blood coming out in him. We schooled him four times, but you can’t school them on the racetrack. He really boiled over going to the gate. The big crowd kind of shook him up. I thought he’d be fourth or fifth [early], but he was up there going hell-bent for leather. That’s part of the learning experience and now he’s eligible to move up.”

Luzzi’s blueprint for the race was also worthless a few jumps after the start as Run Man Run was forced to press front-running Artax on a slow early pace.

“I threw our plans right out the window,” Luzzi said. “I expected there to be a little more gas up front, and that I’d be able to tuck in behind the speed. But everyone was kind of riding like it was a mile-and-a-half race. So at that point [at the top of the stretch] I just had to let him go. He really cut for home, and it’s safe to say he was cranked up for this one.”

The winning time was 1:21 2/5, with Run Man Run carrying 115 pounds, two to six less than any other horse. With Artax and Run Man Run on the lead, Event Of The Year and Tomorrows Cat pressed the pace. Sea Of Secrets, the second betting choice in a coupling with Yarrow Brae, moved into contention with an eighth of a mile left, but settled for fifth place.

“It looked like he got a little tired,” said Neil Drysdale, Sea Of Secrets’ trainer. “He looked good going around the turn, then flattened out in the last sixteenth.”

Horse Racing Notes

Alex Solis rode three winners. . . . Trainer Wayne Lukas won with two first-time starters, Sasha’s Prospect and Cape Canaveral, giving him one more victory than he had the entire Oak Tree meet at Santa Anita. Sasha’s Prospect, a $2.3-million yearling, and Cape Canaveral were both sired by Mr. Prospector. . . . Magical Allure, at 6-5, and Brulay, 8-5, are the morning-line favorites in today’s La Brea Stakes. . . . Cavonnier is the 8-5 favorite in the Ack Ack Stakes. . . . Frank Stronach said that he is shopping to buy other tracks and has “some feelers out.” Asked if he might be interested in Hollywood Park, he said: “If it’s for sale. If the price is right.” Stronach said that he plans to make sweeping changes at Santa Anita, including the building of a hotel on the track grounds and the addition of a second turf course, outside the main track. “The mountains will stay,” he said.