Despite the Stakes, It’s Not All Gravy

Santa Anita is running four graded stakes worth $1.15 million today and Sunday. The fields include Exploit, the undefeated early favorite for the Kentucky Derby; Malek, winner of last year’s Santa Anita Handicap; Free House, winner of the Santa Anita Derby and the Pacific Classic; Cavonnier, another Santa Anita Derby winner, and Manistique, definitely the biggest and perhaps the best older filly around.

Yet something is missing: more horses.

These four races--today’s $500,000 Strub and $150,000 San Vicente and Sunday’s $300,000 San Antonio Handicap and $200,000 La Canada--have drawn only 23 horses. Seven will run in each of the Strub and La Canada, but only three horses are racing against Exploit in the San Vicente and only five are running in the San Antonio, the traditional prep for the Santa Anita Handicap.

As Tom Robbins, director of racing, points out, all five horses in the San Antonio are Grade I winners. That’s quality. In last Saturday’s Donn Handicap at Gulfstream Park, where Puerto Madero upset Silver Charm, only three of the 12 starters were Grade I winners.

But serious bettors need more than quality horses to wax enthusiastic, because small fields are seldom attractive betting propositions. Big fields are conducive to better payoffs.

Overall, Santa Anita’s fields are about the same size--almost nine horses a race--as they were last season. There has been no comparative drop through the first five weeks of the meet.

But the fields haven’t grown even though purse money, because of legislative relief, has mushroomed. Overnight purses--for races exclusive of stakes--are expected to increase by 10% this season.

Robbins said that overnight purses for the season, which runs through April 19, might average $300,000 a day.

But injuries and the lure of out-of-town races have hurt Santa Anita’s stakes fields. Dixie Dot Com, who would have been one of the favorites in the Strub, was injured while winning the San Fernando three weeks ago. Puerto Madero and Silver Charm, who might have run in the San Antonio, were instead shipped to Gulfstream for the Donn.

The Strub may take a back seat to Exploit in the San Vicente. From the same barn that produced Silver Charm and Real Quiet, the last two Kentucky Derby winners, trainer Bob Baffert’s Exploit has won all four of his races but hasn’t run since his victory in November in the Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes the same day as the Breeders’ Cup at Churchill Downs.

Horse Racing Notes

The lineup for the San Antonio, in post-position order: Lord Grillo, Dramatic Gold, Free House, Cavonnier and Malek. . . . Eddie Delahoussaye’s win Friday with Optical Solution was the 5,999th of his career. . . . To run him in the $4-million Breeders’ Cup Classic next November, Puerto Madero’s owners, R.D. Hubbard and Dwight Sutherland, will have to pay an $800,000 supplementary fee. The Chilean-bred didn’t arrive in California until last year and had not been nominated for the Breeders’ Cup.