Caffe Latte Helps Nakatani Pour It on With Six-Win Day

A special filly helped jockey Corey Nakatani to a special day at Santa Anita.

The filly is Caffe Latte, who won the $250,000 Santa Barbara Handicap, one of six wins Sunday for Nakatani.

The meet’s leading rider might have tied the Santa Anita record of seven, set by Laffit Pincay in 1987, but his heavily favored mount, House Special, broke badly in the seventh race before rallying along the rail for a third-place finish.

Nakatani, 29, became the eighth jockey to win six races in a day at the track. Pincay, Sandy Hawley and Darrel McHargue have done it twice. Other Santa Anita jockeys with six-win days include Bill Shoemaker, Steve Valdez, Pat Valenzuela and Martin Pedroza. Nakatani became the first six-time winner since Pedroza’s big day in 1992.

Besides his six wins Sunday, Nakatani, with eight mounts, had two third-place finishes. The other wins besides Caffe Latte ($6.40) were Rita Runaway ($4.20), Beach Bum ($2.80), Dream Counter ($14.40), Sixshooter ($6.40) and King Of Swing ($12.40). Rita Runaway and Beach Bum were the only favorites.

At other tracks, Nakatani has never had a six-win day. His first five-win day came at Santa Anita in 1996.

Of his six winners Sunday, three were trained by Bob Baffert, including Caffe Latte.

“She’s a special filly,” Nakatani said. “She should have won her Breeders’ Cup race, but she ducked in, which pretty much cost her. When she was up for sale, Baffert asked me about her. I told him that she should have won the Breeders’ Cup. There were no two ways about it.”

Then owned by David Milch and trained by Julio Canani, Caffe Latte was fourth, only one length behind Soaring Softly, in the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf at Gulfstream Park in November. Soon afterward, Milch sold the Irish-bred daughter of Seattle Slew to Bob and Janice McNair of Stonerside Stable for an undisclosed amount.

“She has continued to improve,” Nakatani said. “Bob put cheater blinkers on her and she has been focused ever since. Even with Happyanunoit and Spanish Fern in this race, I was convinced I was on the best filly.”

Favored Happyanunoit, who hadn’t run since winning the Matriarch at Hollywood Park five months ago, led most of the way in the 1 1/4-mile grass race, but Caffe Latte overtook her at the top of the stretch and won by three-quarters of a length.

Country Garden was third, three-quarters of a length in front of Spanish Fern. The time was 2:00.

Nakatani’s six wins give him 80 for the 87-day meet that ends today. He’s nine ahead of Kent Desormeaux and assured of his second Santa Anita title. The first came when he won 75 races to defeat Alex Solis by one in 1996.

Baffert’s stranglehold at Santa Anita continues. With 40 wins--eight in stakes--he has clinched the 2000 title, his fifth in six years. The only year he didn’t win during that span, in 1996, Bill Spawr was the champion with 28 wins, three more than Baffert.

Especially satisfying to Baffert are the wins with grass horses.

“When I left quarter horses and switched to thoroughbreds fulltime [in 1991], everybody said that all I could train was sprinters,” Baffert said recently.

“Then when I started winning the longer races, they said I wasn’t any good with grass horses. The reason I’m winning on grass now is because people are sending me some good grass horses.

“There’s no secret to it, you just have to have the right horses. I’m still the same guy, training the same way I always have.”

With Baffert at Churchill Downs, preparing Captain Steve to run in the Kentucky Derby on May 6, assistants Tim Yakteen and Jim Barnes were in charge Sunday.

“Jimmy said that [Caffe Latte] was ready to run,” Yakteen said, “and he was exactly right--she was ready. She needed to be, against this field.”

Bob McNair is the owner of the new NFL franchise in Houston, which will begin play in 2002. At Keeneland on Friday, another of his Stonerside fillies, Sahara Gold, scored a 9-1 upset in the Stonerside Beaumont Stakes. Yes, the people who sponsored the race also won it. As diplomatically as possible, McNair presented the Beaumont trophy to his wife in the winner’s circle.

Horse Racing Notes

In the feature on today’s closing-day card, El Cielo, who has won seven of 12 starts, is the 9-5 morning-line favorite in the San Simeon Handicap. . . . The fallout from Saturday’s Kentucky Derby preps is that the Derby probably will pick up two horses from the Coolmore Lexington Stakes and none from the Lone Star Derby. Tahkodha Hills, winner of the Lone Star, is considered a solid 1 1/2-mile horse and will head for the Belmont Stakes on June 10. Harlan Traveler and Commendable, third and fourth in the Lexington, are likely Kentucky Derby starters, but Unshaded and Globalize, who were 1-2, aren’t expected to run on May 6. Unshaded wasn’t nominated for the Triple Crown races and it would cost his owner, Jim Tafel, a $150,000 supplementary fee to make his gelding eligible. “It’s very unlikely we’d supplement,” Tafel said after the race. “The Travers [at Saratoga in August] is our goal.” . . . Bob and Janice McNair, who race Caffe Latte, have bought into War Chant, runner-up to The Deputy in the Santa Anita Derby and a probable for the Kentucky Derby. Irv and Marjorie Cowan have sold 50% of War Chant to Robert Clay, who owns Three Chimneys Farm near Midway, Ky. The horse will continue to run in the colors of the Cowans, who are War Chant’s racing managers. Clay will manage the colt’s career when he’s retired to stud.

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Jockeying for First Position

Jockey Corey Nakatani’s six winners in eight mounts at Santa Anita Sunday:

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Race Horse Payoff 2nd Rita Runaway $4.20 3rd Beach Bum $2.80 4th Dream Counter $14.40 6th Caffe Latte $6.40 8th Sixshooter $6.40 9th King Of Swing $12.40

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Note: Nakatani’s other two mounts, Roanoke’s Cash in the first and House Special in the seventh, finished third.