Streaking Riboletta Looks Like Money in Bank Again

Aaron Jones, the owner of Riboletta, was enjoying the Brazilian mare’s convincing win in the $300,000 Vanity Handicap too much to deal directly with the $400,000 question: Will he put up that substantial supplementary fee to run her in the $2-million Breeders’ Cup Distaff at Churchill Downs Nov. 4?

“I’ll have to think about that a long, long time,” said Jones, the Oregon lumber magnate who races Riboletta with his wife Marie. “I don’t think there would have been any female horse in the country that could have beaten her [Sunday]. But . . . it hasn’t come to the point yet where I’m waking up in a cold sweat wondering if I’ll put up all that dough for just one race.”

Besides the money, there’s another consideration. When Riboletta was bought by Jones 1 1/2 years ago and shipped to the U.S. from Brazil, she stepped in a crack somewhere along the way, suffering a painful foot injury. Jones feels that the 5-year-old has been a reluctant shipper since, and points to a trip to Golden Gate Fields in April, when she was a disappointing third, beaten by 13 lengths. But that race was also on turf, and it has been a steady dirt diet since then that has helped move Riboletta to the next level with Beautiful Pleasure--last year’s Breeders’ Cup Distaff winner--and Heritage Of Gold as the best main-track female runners in the country.

“Going back and forth to Santa Anita, Hollywood Park and Del Mar, she’s all right,” Jones said. “But anywhere else, it would be a concern. Maybe we can win three or four other races and do just as well as running in the Breeders’ Cup.”

Riboletta’s latest win--her fourth in seven starts since Jones shifted his horses from Bob Baffert to Eduardo Inda in January--made her the fourth horse to sweep Hollywood Park’s three major dirt races for fillies and mares. In 1977, Cascapedia was the first to win the Hawthorne, the Milady and the Vanity in the same year, and the only subsequent sweeps were posted by Bayakoa in 1989 and Brought To Mind in 1991. The Chilean-born Inda, 57, was the first lieutenant at the barn when trainer Ron McAnally was winning multiple stakes with Bayakoa, Brought To Mind and Paseana, another Vanity winner.

“At the moment, Riboletta ranks right there with those other good ones,” Inda said.

Riboletta’s 5 1/2-length win as the 3-5 favorite in the Vanity meant that she had swept the Hollywood Park filly-and-mare dirt triple by a combined 15 3/4 lengths. Carrying 123 pounds--three to 15 pounds more than her five rivals--she covered 1 1/8 miles in 1:48 2/5.

“It takes a very good horse to sweep the series,” said Chris McCarron, who rode Riboletta in all three races. “She showed that she’s a top-class mare. As for supplementing her to the Breeders’ Cup, they’d get my encouragement, that’s for sure.”

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McCarron was back in the winner’s circle three races after the Vanity, having ridden 8-5 favorite Bienamado to victory in the Jim Murray Memorial Handicap for his ninth stakes win of the meet.

Bienamado, making both his 2000 and California debut, is owned in a partnership that includes his breeders, John Toffan and Trudy McCaffery. Toffan and McCaffery also raced Free House, winner of the 1998 Pacific Classic at Del Mar and the subject of Murray’s last column, which ran in The Times on the day the Pulitzer Prize winner died in 1998.