A Top Claim Chases Glory in His Return

Claiming horses are fashionable. The rage may have started last year with Charismatic, the Kentucky Derby-Preakness winner who could have been claimed twice but wasn’t, and it continued with Budroyale, claimed three times en route to $2.8 million in purses, and Early Pioneer, the winner of Sunday’s Sempra Energy Hollywood Gold Cup.

Back in the mix on Saturday at Hollywood Park is River Keen, who was one of the track’s most expensive claims when his owner, Hugo Reynolds of Norco, suggested to trainer Bob Baffert that they buy him for $100,000 after a race in December 1998.

It took a while for River Keen to get rolling for the Reynolds-Baffert duo, but before an 11th-place finish in last November’s Breeders’ Cup Classic, the horse had developed into one of the best in the country. He had gone to New York in the fall to win the Woodward and the Jockey Club Gold Cup at Belmont Park, and a victory in the Breeders’ Cup would have thrust him into the consciousness of horse-of-the-year voters.

Idle since November, his chronic quarter cracks requiring repair and rest, River Keen launches 2000 with Saturday’s $150,000 Bel Air Handicap, the stake that put him on the road to those Grade I wins last year.

This will be River Keen’s third start in the 1 1/16-mile Bel Air. He went from last--in 1998--to first last year, and on Saturday he could become the first back-to-back winner of the race, and the first 8-year-old to win the stake since Leading Article won the first running in 1939. An 8-year-old hasn’t won any stake at Hollywood Park since Letthebighossroll, also trained by Baffert, won the Answer Do in 1996.

In a seven-horse field, River Keen will carry high weight of 122 pounds, which is seven pounds more than he won with last year. Crows drew the inside post, and outside him in the gate will be Sultry Substitute, Prime Timber, Peach Flat, River Keen, Patience Game and Euchre. Prime Timber is second in the weights with 118 pounds.

Chris Antley, who rode River Keen in all three of his stakes wins last year, has weight problems and an unclear future, so Baffert has hired Victor Espinoza, the hottest jockey in town. Espinoza, the leading rider in wins at Hollywood Park and ninth-highest nationally in purses, won Sunday’s Triple Bend Handicap with Elaborate in addition to the Gold Cup with Early Pioneer. His agent, Tony Matos, was salivating over the live horses he’d lined up this week, and on Thursday Espinoza won four more races, three of them in succession. He now has 53 wins at the meet, nine more than Corey Nakatani, who’s next in the standings.

Good and bad, trainer Vladimir Cerin figures in much of this claiming business. It was Cerin who twice filled out claim slips for a then-unheralded Charismatic, but changed his mind and never dropped them in the box. Five weeks before the first non-claim, Cerin, encouraged by client David Wilson, claimed Early Pioneer for $62,500 and then put Espinoza on him for the first time in the Gold Cup.

In the Bel Air, Cerin will run Crows, one of the last horses Eddie Gregson saddled. In his last start, Crows ran third on June 4, just hours before Gregson shocked the racing community by fatally shooting himself. Crows’ owner, Earle Mack, sent the Argentine-bred to Cerin, although the two never have met.

Espinoza rode River Keen three times when Bob Hess Jr. trained the horse. He won a race with River Keen at Hollywood Park five weeks before their last-place finish in the 1998 Bel Air.

Espinoza’s fourth win Thursday came in the feature race with Team Valor’s Elegant Ridge, an Irish-bred 5-year-old mare who nearly died last year before she was rescued by colic surgery. This year, Elegant Ridge has two wins and a second in three starts, and she’s two for two with Espinoza.

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A few local jockeys, including Nakatani, will be out of town Saturday. Kent Desormeaux and Nakatani will be at Calder, the South Florida track running five sprint races worth $950,000, and Iggy Puglisi will ride Cielo Stellato, who’s 12-1 for his dirt debut in the $300,000 Ohio Derby at Thistledown.

In the richest race at Calder, the $400,000 Princess Rooney Handicap, Desormeaux has the mount on Show Me The Stage, a filly who has four wins, two seconds and two thirds in her last eight starts. That run of consistency began after she ran sixth in the Princess Rooney last year.

Among Nakatani’s mounts are California shippers Caller One, winner of the Laz Barrera Stakes at Hollywood Park on May 29, and Midday Fun, an allowance winner at Hollywood Park on July 2. Caller One is entered in the $200,000 Carry Back Stakes, which will mark the return of Hal’s Hope, the Florida Derby winner who was overmatched in the Blue Grass, Kentucky Derby and the Preakness.

Midday Fun, running in the $200,000 Azalea Breeders’ Cup Stakes for fillies, is owned by Frank Stronach, who is running Milwaukee Brew at Thistledown, one of the seven tracks he owns. Snuck In is the 5-2 morning-line favorite in the Ohio Derby.

Stronach’s best 3-year-old, Preakness winner Red Bullet, was diagnosed as having a high white blood cell count after running third, at 3-5, in last Sunday’s Dwyer Stakes at Belmont Park. Trainer Joe Orseno said that Red Bullet is still expected to run in the $1-million Haskell Handicap at Monmouth Park on Aug. 6.

Albert The Great, winner of the Dwyer, is scheduled to use the Jim Dandy Stakes on Aug. 5 at Saratoga as his prep for the $1-million Travers on Aug. 26. The Travers also is in Red Bullet’s future.

Horse Racing Notes

Yatakak Take, the Japanese riding star, is winless with 16 mounts during intermittent appearances at Hollywood Park this season, but on Thursday at Newmarket, England, he rode favored Agnes World to victory in the Darley July Cup. Trained by Hideyuki Mori, Agnes World is the first Japanese-trained horse to win a stake in England. . . . Tyler Baze, who dislocated a finger in a spill Wednesday, took off his mounts Thursday. With 27 wins, Baze is the leading apprentice at the meet. . . . The first three finishers in the Affirmed Handicap--Tiznow, Dixie Union and Millencolin--are probables for the Swaps on July 23. Tiznow’s owners would have to pay a $15,000 supplementary fee to run. Another probable is Captain Steve, winner of the Iowa Derby. . . . Artax, winner of last year’s Breeders’ Cup Sprint, may try to win the race again this year, when it’s run at Churchill Downs on Nov. 4. After being bred to 93 mares at owner Ernie Paragallo’s farm in upstate New York, Artax has resumed training and may go into the Breeders’ Cup off one prep race.