Dollase Takes Hot Streak South

A year ago, Craig Dollase was an assistant trainer for his father here, while also caring for two or three horses that ran in his own name. The younger Dollase had five starters at the Del Mar meeting, winning one race. Sixty-eight trainers won more.

But as Del Mar opens its 59th season today, it is Craig Dollase who has quickly become the hottest trainer in racing. Not many trainers start horses in 38 races at a major meet and win with half of them, but that is what Dollase did during the Hollywood Park season that ended Monday.

“That was the amazing thing, his win percentage,” said Wally Dollase, the trainer’s father, who was tied for 26th in the Hollywood Park standings with six wins. “He did a fabulous job of placing his horses. Winning 50% of the time is unheard of, with as many starters as he had. I couldn’t be prouder.”

Craig Dollase has no starters the first two days of the Del Mar meet, but he has brought more than two dozen horses to the seaside course. Dollase may take one of his first shots at Del Mar with Tower Full in Sunday’s $200,000 Bing Crosby Breeders’ Cup Handicap.

Dollase, 27, has assembled a barn that’s about 40% claiming horses. “We’ve bought horses, claimed horses and some came when my dad took the private job [for Prince Ahmed Salman and the Thoroughbred Corp.],” he said. “I try to do my homework, and I wasn’t that surprised that we did so well at Hollywood. I knew I had decent stock when the meet started.”

It is easy to say Craig Dollase turned the corner early last December, when his father abandoned his public stable to train for Prince Ahmed Salman. Some of Wally Dollase’s 28 outside horses went to his son, but Craig Dollase already had 10 of his own horses at the time and, on a smaller scale, he already was sending out a high percentage of winners.

He was 25 when he saddled his first winner, at Santa Anita on April 4, 1996. That December, two days before his 26th birthday, he won his first stake with Tower Full in the Vernon O. Underwood at Hollywood, and less than two weeks later, Dollase fashioned his own pick three--worth $226.50--by winning three straight races.

Last year, Dollase won with 20 of 63 starters, a good .317 clip. This year he warmed up for the tour de force at Hollywood Park by winning with 12 of 43 at Santa Anita.

“He loves the game and he’s a working fool,” Wally Dollase said of his only son. “He typifies that old line: The harder you work, the luckier you get.”

When Aimee Dollase, Craig’s 25-year-old sister, won the first race of her brief training career at Hollywood Park in late May, students of racing arcana began scratching their heads: When, if ever, did three members of the same family saddle winners at the same meet? One of the answers might be the Barrera brothers in New York in the 1970s, around the time when Frank Wright, another trainer, said in jest: “One out of every three horses in the world is trained by a Barrera.”

There aren’t enough heartstrings to go around for Cincy Dollase, the mother of the brood, when at least two of the family trainers are running horses the same race. Complications multiply when Corey Nakatani is also riding in the race. Nakatani is married to Michelle Dollase, a sometime horsewoman and yet another of Wally and Cincy’s children.

In last Sunday’s fifth race at Hollywood Park, Craig Dollase, starting the 4-year-old gelding Six Point Eight, needed only one more win to clinch at least a tie for the training title. Also running was Aimee Dollase’s Air Affair, a colt who accounted for her first win.

“What do you do?” Wally Dollase said. “Craig’s going for the training title. Corey’s riding Aimee’s horse and he’s got a shot at the riding title. And Aimee’s trying to win her second race. It’s an impossible situation.”

For Cincy Dollase, levity is the only answer. Under the trees in the garden paddock, Six Point Eight and Air Affair were being saddled next to each other. Cincy lingered near her daughter as she gave Nakatani pre-race instructions. Then the mother mock-slinked, almost Groucho Marx style, over to her son’s horse. “They’re going for the lead, Craig,” she joked, pointing her right thumb over the shoulder. Air Affair led in deep stretch, but Six Point Eight won, with Aimee Dollase’s horse finishing third. At her expense, her brother had bagged his 19th win and at least a piece of the meet title.

Horse Racing Notes

Silver Charm has been assigned high weight of 125 pounds for Saturday’s $250,000 San Diego Handicap. Other weights are Benchmark and Puerto Madero, 117 pounds; Hal’s Pal, 113; and Grajagan, 110. . . . Trainer Julio Canani, who is running Ladies Din in the second division of today’s Oceanside Stakes, won the race in 1975 with Willmar, a horse he claimed for $20,000, and again in 1988 with Silver Circus, a $32,000 claim. . . . Elmhurst, winless since winning the Breeders’ Cup Sprint last year, has been retired. The 8-year-old gelding won eight of 48 starts and earned $1 million.

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Del Mar at a Glance

* Length of Meet: Today-Sept. 9 (43 days, Wednesday-Monday).

* Post Times: 2 p.m. Wednesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays through Mondays; 4 p.m. July 31, Aug. 7 and 14; 3:30 p.m. Aug. 21 and 28 and Sept. 4; 12:30 p.m. Aug. 15 and Sept. 7.

* Major Stakes Races: $250,000 San Diego Handicap (Saturday), $300,000 Eddie Read Handicap (Aug. 2), $1-million Pacific Classic (Aug. 15), $250,000 Del Mar Oaks (Aug. 23), $250,000 Del Mar Handicap (Sept. 5), $300,000 Del Mar Derby (Sept. 7), $250,000 Del Mar Futurity (Sept. 9).