Perim, Owner Are Big Winners

After they had won the $125,000 Carleton F. Burke Handicap with the French import Perim, owner Jed Cohen and trainer Darrell Vienna were heading for the box seats Sunday when a Santa Anita official mentioned a champagne toast in the directors’ room.

“I’m sure that’s the reason you came out here,” Vienna said to Cohen, while meaning the opposite. “But maybe you ought to take them up on it. You’ve never been up there before.”

That was no exaggeration. A few minutes before, Cohen had reflected on his many years in racing.

“Every 45 years, I win a stake,” the investment banker said with a smile. “On the way to the track, I thought about this race and said that it had been $67 million and 18 cents since my last stake.”

According to Vienna, Perim gave Cohen his first win in a graded stake, the Burke barely qualifying as a Grade III. It’s not for the lack of trying. Cohen currently has about 25 horses in his stable.

Midway through 1997, Perim was bought in France, where he had won eight of 19 starts in modest company. Vienna first ran him in the ’97 Eddie Read Handicap at Del Mar, where he finished last. Four weeks later, in the Del Mar Handicap, Perim was again last.

“He was a very angry horse then,” Cohen said. “He was as angry as any horse you could be around. We give him a long rest, to get some of that sourness out of him. I’m a great believer in turning out horses when they’re not happy.”

When Perim returned to the races, a year later at Del Mar, the chip was off his shoulder and a bone chip had been removed from one of his ankles. He ran second in an allowance race, a half-length behind the winner. Then he ran at Kentucky Downs in the Kentucky Cup Turf Handicap, at 1 1/2 miles, and finished second again.

The Burke was also 1 1/2 miles on grass. Through ho-hum fractions, jockey Brice Blanc and Perim shadowed Crystal Hearted, the 5-2 favorite in a field of nine. Perim discarded Crystal Hearted at the top of the stretch to win by 1 3/4 lengths over Single Empire, an Irish-bred making his first U.S. start. Rate Cut ran third, beaten by 3 1/2 lengths. Perim earned $75,000, paying $13.40 to win and finishing in a time of 2:29 1/5, five seconds slower than the stakes record. Perim carried 113 pounds, five pounds less than Crystal Hearted and Amerique, the co-high weights.

Vienna cautioned Blanc to be near the leaders in the event Percutant didn’t test Crystal Hearted early.

“Percutant didn’t show speed,” Blanc said, “so I didn’t want to fight my horse and I just let him go. He’s got a long stride and you don’t want to shut him down when he’s so comfortable. When I got to the half-mile pole, I started feeling the pressure of the other horses, so I let him jump on the bit and we started pulling away. I knew someone would have to do something special to beat him.”

Now, with Perim’s first American win on the books, Vienna isn’t sure what he has.

“He’s a Group III horse, and you never know which way they’re going to go,” Vienna said. “He’s either going to be a high-priced claimer, or he’s going to be all right.”

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Horse Racing Notes

Victory Gallop, the Belmont Stakes winner, had a blazing workout at Churchill Downs. His 1:12 six furlongs will send the colt into the Breeders’ Cup Classic there on Nov. 7. Victory Gallop, second in the Travers, is recovering from surgery to correct a breathing problem. Alex Solis has the mount for the Breeders’ Cup. . . . One set of early Classic odds in Nevada has Skip Away at 5-2, Silver Charm 3-1, Awesome Again 5-1 and Swain 7-1. Gentlemen’s 12-1 price colored by the possibility that he might run in the Breeders’ Cup Mile. Pre-entry payments are due today, and R.D. Hubbard, Gentlemen’s principal owner, said he and his partners were leaning toward the Classic. “We’ll pre-enter for both races,” Hubbard said. “The trainer [Richard Mandella] will make the final decision.”

Chris McCarron didn’t ride Senor Senor in the Burke because of a sore ankle and Eddie Delahoussaye, scheduled to ride Amerique, took the day off to battle a sinus condition. Horses that he was scheduled to ride won the first and second races . . . McCarron will ride either Awesome Again or Touch Gold in the Breeders’ Cup Classic, with Pat Day getting first choice of the Patrick Byrne-trained colts. . . . Third in the Norfolk and second behind Worldly Manner in the Del Mar Futurity, Daring General will run in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile. . . . Kevin Burns, a racing official on the Southern California circuit, had his license pulled by the Oak Tree stewards for possession of drugs and betting on horses. Burns, 31, violated a probation that had started last February as the result of betting. He last worked as a patrol judge at the Del Mar meet. The stewards also recommended to the California Horse Racing Board that Burns not be re-licensed as a racing official.