Fulton Looks for an Encore by Lord Grillo

During a training career that stretched over 16 years, John Fulton cared for some good horses while never finding a champion. Two races in the U.S. are far too few for a coronation, but a horse has to start somewhere and Lord Grillo, sniffed out by Fulton in Buenos Aires last summer, has the look of a major contender.

Lord Grillo, in the first race he ever ran at Santa Anita, beat Silver Charm in the Malibu on Dec. 26, and from the outside post he’ll try for an encore today in the $300,000 San Fernando Breeders’ Cup Stakes.

Mike Puype, who trains Lord Grillo for Gary Biszantz’s Cobra Farm, figures that distances longer than today’s 1 1/16 miles will play more to the Argentine-bred’s advantage, but in his five starts, all at a mile or less, he’s racked up three wins and two seconds.

“The [San Fernando] distance ought to be all right for him,” said Fulton, who quit training in California in 1988 to become a bloodstock agent. “He does have some tactical speed. The Malibu was a very strong race for him. He was six months younger than the horses he was running against, seven furlongs wasn’t his best distance, and he lost a lot of ground in the beginning and still won.”

The Silver Charm that Lord Grillo beat in the Malibu hadn’t run in 6 1/2 months and was road-blocked by horses when he was about to unleash his stretch kick. Since the Malibu, Silver Charm has been voted 1997’s top 3-year-old male and his trainer, Bob Baffert, also won an Eclipse Award for his work with the Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner and a stable that earned $8.8 million.

Biszantz said that he paid about $350,000 for Lord Grillo, Fulton helping the Rancho Santa Fe horseman complete the deal less than 24 hours after the horse had won a $190,000 race, one of Argentina’s showcase stakes, in Buenos Aires on June 16.

“We saw him before that race and liked what we saw,” Fulton said. “We moved quickly after he won, and it took the support of a guy like Gary to do that. By the time the sun was up the next morning, we had a deal. Then the rest of the pack [of potential buyers] came in, but it was already a done deal by then.”

One of the best horses Fulton ever trained was George Steinbrenner’s Steve’s Friend, who was on an eight-race losing streak when he won the Hollywood Derby at 34-1 in 1977. That was enough to send the colt on to the Kentucky Derby, but ’77 was an inopportune year to be at Churchill Downs, where Seattle Slew launched his Triple Crown sweep. Still, Steve’s Friend finished fifth in the Derby, beaten by slightly more than five lengths.

Standing his own horses at stud, racing some and looking for prospects, Fulton has spent more time in South America than the U.S. since leaving California, and lived in Chile at one time. He’s now living in Coral Gables, Fla., wearing his bloodstock hat and working as the Latin American sales representative for Carlsbad-based Cobra Golf, one of the leading golf club manufacturers. This makes for a good fit with Biszantz, who is chairman emeritus of Cobra after selling the company to American Brands for a reported $700 million in 1996.

Lord Grillo was bred in Argentina by Samuel Lieberman’s Haras de la Pomme, which also bred Gentlemen, one of the best horses in the country. Lord Grillo, with two wins in three starts in Argentina and a second-place finish against Handsome Halo, arrived at Puype’s barn at Del Mar exactly a month after Biszantz bought him.

“He was a little rough around the edges, and we had to pay attention to some minor problems he had with his feet,” Puype said.

Lord Grillo bruised a hoof while making his debut, a second-place finish at seven furlongs at Hollywood Park on Nov. 22. In the Malibu, he and jockey Eddie Delahoussaye rallied from eighth place, nine lengths behind, to beat Silver Charm by half a length.

Puype’s plan is to run on Feb. 7 in the $500,000 Strub Stakes, at 1 1/8 miles, followed by the $1-million Santa Anita Handicap, a 1 1/4-mile race, on March 7.

Other than Lord Grillo and Silver Charm, the San Fernando returnees from Dec. 26 are Mud Route, who was fourth in the Malibu, and Trafalger, who finished eighth.

Last year, Biszantz’s horses started 201 times and accounted for 32 wins. The real way of keeping score, of course, is by purse totals.

“We had a pretty good year,” Biszantz said. “The barn earned more than $2 million [ranking 14th nationally]. But we didn’t have that one big horse. Our top prospects got hurt and fell by the wayside. This year, Lord Grillo could be that big horse. He has that kind of potential.”

Horse Racing Notes

Russell Baze is still the only winner of the Isaac Murphy Award, having earned the honor for the third consecutive year. In 1997, Baze won with 28.3% of his mounts, the best percentage in the country. He won 420 races with 1,484 mounts. Baze, who rides at Golden Gate Fields and Bay Meadows, also won his 6,000th race, becoming the 12th jockey to reach that level, and he’s won at least 400 races for six consecutive years. Edgar Prado, who led the country with 536 wins, finished second in the Murphy standings with a .272 winning percentage and Garrett Gomez was third with .251. The award is named after the jockey who won the Kentucky Derby three times before 1900 and won at a 44% clip during his Hall of Fame career.

Gomez won with all three of his mounts Friday at Santa Anita. The feature race, the Linda Card Handicap, went to Avenue Shopper, an $80,000 claim by trainer Ted West last year. . . . Real Quiet, winner of the Hollywood Futurity, runs against seven other 3-year-olds Sunday in the $200,000 Golden Gate Derby. . . . In another race for 3-year-olds, undefeated Sweetsouthernsaint is the 7-5 favorite in the $100,000 Holy Bull Stakes today at Gulfstream Park.

Corey Nakatani, who has won the San Gorgonio Handicap three consecutive times and four of the last five years, rides Luna Wells today in the stake. . . . Sunday’s $150,000 El Encino Stakes, the middle race in the La Canada series for 4-year-old fillies, drew six horses, including I Ain’t Bluffing, winner of the La Brea on Dec. 27. . . . High weight, at 117 pounds, for Sunday’s $100,000 Sensational Star Handicap is Native Desert, who had six wins, four seconds and three thirds in 16 starts last year. Thirteen other California-breds are entered in the 6 1/2-furlong race down the hill. . . . Praviana, Lord Grillo’s stablemate, is sick and will miss the El Encino. The Chilean-bred filly was third in the La Brea in her U.S. debut.