NTRA Series Looks Worn Out as It Hits Del Mar Finish Line

The National Thoroughbred Racing Assn. executives on hand for today’s ninth running of the $1-million Pacific Classic may be watching the race from a bunker.

The NTRA, a coalition of many industry groups that was formed last year to resurrect racing from its doldrums, is under fire on many fronts. Having spent $24.5 million its first fiscal year and budgeted for $30.8 million in its second, the NTRA seems to be losing friends and support.

To begin with, Frank Stronach, who owns Santa Anita and Gulfstream Park--tracks that account for an estimated $750,000 of the NTRA’s annual revenue--is concerned that there’s not enough bang for his buck. Worse for the NTRA, Stronach may be buying three more tracks, including Golden Gate Fields, and his withdrawal from the lodge would be a major blow to the NTRA coffers.

More recently, a proposed 1% surcharge for buyers of horses at auction has blown up in the NTRA’s face and turned into a public-relations disaster. At a time when new horse owners are in short supply, a tax on the investors who usually lose more than they win is ill-advised.

Those are only a couple of the problems. TVG, the new all-racing television network that has the NTRA’s blessing, was launched to widespread critical panning, and the 11-race NTRA Champions on Fox series, which lurches to a conclusion with the Pacific Classic, is in need of an overhaul. Even Pete Macheska, a producer for the Fox network, recently criticized the series when he said: “Two of the races were for the same type of horses less than 24 hours and 60 miles apart. [That’s] stupid. We’re fooling ourselves if we think horse of the year is decided before the Breeders’ Cup.”

Injuries and retirements for many of the year’s leading older horses aside, the NTRA-Fox series took on a hollow tone from the start when the underpinning for a convoluted point system was the Pacific Classic. No matter how many points--theoretically worth $5,000 apiece--horses piled up in the first 10 races, their owners would get nothing if they didn’t finish in the first five in today’s race. Behrens, winner of three of the races, is the point leader and could have earned $930,000--$600,000 for the purse and $330,000 in bonus money--if he had won the Pacific Classic. But Jim Bond, Behrens’ Saratoga- based trainer, mapped out a Del Mar-excluded program early on, and he has stuck to it.

Basil V. DeVito Jr., one of the NTRA’s eight vice presidents, tried to put a better spin on the NTRA-Fox series last week, but came off more than a tad insensitive when he said: “These [horse injuries] are a fact of life. They are marketing disappointments rather than equine tragedies.” Owners of horses such as Victory Gallop, Real Quiet and Mazel Trick--the people who would be taxed 1% at these auction sales--might blanch at DeVito’s callousness.

For some, the Pacific Classic, with Malek the 8-5 favorite and General Challenge 2-1 on the morning line against six other horses, is not even the most intriguing race on today’s card. Vying for that distinction is the Vinery Del Mar Debutante, to be run an hour after the Classic. The Debutante field includes undefeated filly Chilukki from trainer Bob Baffert’s barn.

Chilukki, who races for Robert and Janice McNair, was bought for $875,000 earlier this year. Her first three races were at Churchill Downs, where she broke her maiden by 9 1/4 lengths and a month later raced against males while winning the Kentucky Breeders’ Cup Stakes. After a victory in the Churchill Downs Debutante, Chilukki moved to Del Mar and won the Sorrento Stakes on Aug. 7.

Even after today, Chilukki will not have been tested around two turns, but the Del Mar Debutante, at seven furlongs, will be her longest race.

Baffert said last week that Chilukki compares favorably to Silverbulletday when she was a 2-year-old. Silverbulletday, who has run well at every track but Del Mar, ran fourth in last year’s Debutante. Her powerful win in the Alabama Stakes at Saratoga a week ago was her 13th victory in 15 starts.

Horse Racing Notes

Trainer Julio Canani saddled the even-money favorite, Ladies Din, but his son Nick wound up winning Saturday’s Del Mar Handicap when Sayarshan overtook Dancing Place to win by three-quarters of a length. Ladies Din finished third, nearly five lengths behind the winner. . . . Excellent Meeting, winner of the Santa Anita Oaks but next to last on turf in last Sunday’s Del Mar Oaks, will undergo surgery Tuesday for an ankle chip and is out for the year. . . . Laffit Pincay’s win aboard Shot MD in the first race was his 8,780th.