Silver Charm on Outside Looking In for Dubai Cup

In the game of post-position roulette, Bob Baffert had a 50-50 chance.

The only remaining posts for Saturday’s $4-million Dubai World Cup were No. 1 and No. 10, and it was Silver Charm’s trainer’s turn to blindly take a number. Baffert turned over the card with No. 10 on it--the outside post in the field--and everything is hunky-dory in the Silver Charm camp.

“I’m happy,” said Gary Stevens, who will ride last year’s Kentucky Derby winner in the 1 1/4-mile race. “From out there, I can play my own game and wait and see how the tactics of the race unfold.”

Baffert is superstitious about post positions.. After Silver Charm won last year’s Derby and Preakness and was a win away from a $5-million bonus for a Triple Crown sweep, the gray colt drew on the inside--No. 2--for the Belmont Stakes.

“I knew as soon as we got it that it wasn’t good,” Baffert said. “Touch Gold beat us, and I think it was because Silver Charm didn’t see him coming from the outside. Then we got No. 2 for the Santa Anita Handicap, and that was bad luck again. We didn’t even get the chance to run. I’m glad we got the outside for this one. I prefer that, because I think he could be vulnerable from anywhere else. This horse can handle a challenge if he knows he’s got one, and I don’t want anyone sneaking up on him.”

Silver Charm missed the $1-million Santa Anita Handicap because of a bruised hoof, a minor injury that was caused by a nail that pinched him on his right front shoe. Had the Big ‘Cap been a day later, Silver Charm probably could have run.

Missing the Big ‘Cap on March 7 opened the way for Silver Charm to travel almost 9,000 miles to the Persian Gulf city that ran its first $4-million race in 1996. Cigar, shipping in from Florida, won the inaugural, and last year Singspiel, the house horse running for Sheik Mohammed of Dubai, won the $2.4-million purse as the California shippers, Siphon and Sandpit, finished second and third.

Richard Mandella, who trained Siphon and Sandpit, also finished second in Dubai with Soul Of The Matter in 1996, and he’s back this year with Malek, the lightly regarded winner of the Santa Anita Handicap. Malek is a good horse--his win at Santa Anita was his ninth in 15 starts--but he needs more than a win in a four-horse field, with the favorite (Gentlemen) bleeding from the lungs, before there’s a bandwagon.

“He’s an improving horse,” Mandella said. “Whether he improves enough to beat a horse like Silver Charm remains to be seen.”

There’s no betting in Dubai because of religious considerations, but handicappers all over the globe are lining up with their morning lines. Malek is no better than 10-1--the fifth or sixth choice--according to Ladbrokes, the British bookmakers. They’ve made Silver Charm the 11-8 favorite, and the Daily Racing Form’s odds on Baffert’s 4-year-old are a much more prohibitive 3-5. This is the field, in post-position order, with jockeys and Ladbrokes’ odds:

Malek, Alex Solis, 10-1; Predappio, Frankie Dettori, 5-1; Luso, Pat Eddery, 33-1; Behrens, Jerry Bailey, 6-1; Kyoto City, Mikio Matsunaga, 50-1; Swain, Mick Kinane, 12-1; Oxalagu, Andrasch Starke, 14-1; Borgia, Kieren Fallon, 10-1; Loup Sauvage, Olivier Peslier, 11-2; and Silver Charm, Stevens, 11-8.

All of the starters but Borgia will carry 126 pounds. Borgia, the filly from Germany who finished second to Chief Bearhart in the Breeders’ Cup Turf at Hollywood Park in November, will carry 123 pounds. Malek’s impost is 11 pounds more than his burden in the Santa Anita Handicap.

Post time for the race in California is 8:30 a.m. There will be betting on the race at Santa Anita and at other sites on the state’s satellite network.

Not since Carry Back has a Kentucky Derby winner raced outside North America. Carry Back won the Derby and Preakness--like Silver Charm--in 1961 and ran 10th in the Arc de Triomphe in Paris in 1962.

After the Belmont, Silver Charm took the rest of the season off and returned to action this winter at Santa Anita, running second in the Malibu and winning the San Fernando and Strub Stakes. Owned by Bob and Beverly Lewis of Newport Beach, Silver Charm has seven wins and five seconds in 12 starts, with earnings of $2.2 million.

He’ll be running under the lights Saturday, over a track of tiring sandy loam. The stretch is about three-eighths of a mile--almost 250 yards longer than the home lane at Churchill Downs.

“The stretch goes on forever,” Baffert said. “But that should work in our favor, because this is a horse who loves to battle it out in the stretch.”

Stevens knows the course, having finished second there with Soul Of The Matter. Last year he stayed home, passing up the mount on Singspiel as Bailey won the race for the second time.

Like Cigar, Silver Charm is a Lasix horse; he has been treated with the anti-bleeding diuretic for all but the first start of his career.

“It’s a little bit of a concern,” Baffert said. “It would have been nice to have been able to give him Lasix. But he worked here without Lasix [last Sunday] and he was all right. We’re all in the same boat. It’s equal for everybody.”

AROUND THE TRACK

Santa Anita’s stewards voted not to take any action against trainer Wayne Lukas after two of his horses tested positive for the depressant scopolamine in races on Jan. 11. After a hearing, the stewards concluded that there was the likelihood of “accidental or environmental contamination.” The purses of both horses were taken away. Love Lock’s win in the Santa Ysabel Stakes had been worth $63,600. . . . Quarter horse jockey Jim Lewis remained in a coma with severe head injuries after being thrown from his mount during training exercises Monday at Galway Downs in Temecula. A spokesperson at Loma Linda University Medical Center said Lewis, 40, was brought to the center shortly after the accident and was listed in critical condition. Trainer Jamie Gomez said Lewis’ wife, trainer Kelly Long, told him Lewis was resting more comfortably and appeared to be breathing easier Wednesday.

Baffert said it’s unlikely Silver Charm will run in the Pimlico Special on May 9. Skip Away, champion older horse last year, is headed for Pimlico. . . . Stevens said he’ll ride again in the four-day Royal Ascot meet in England in mid-June. . . . Event Of The Year, undefeated in three starts, will be favored Saturday in the $600,000 Jim Beam Stakes at Turfway Park. In the Caesars Palace future book for the Kentucky Derby, Event Of The Year is 10-1. Lil’s Lad and Favorite Trick are co-favored at 3-1. . . . Making his first start since his Breeders’ Cup win, Chief Bearhart will run Sunday in the $350,000 Explosive Bid Handicap at the Fair Grounds.

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Times staff writer Paul McLeod contributed to this story.