Race Brings Back Fond Memories for McAnally

Waiting to saddle a horse at Santa Anita the other day, trainer Ron McAnally was fondling--yes, fondling--some snapshots taken a few weeks ago when he visited John Henry at the Kentucky Horse Park.

In one of the pictures, John Henry had reared high in the air.

“That was taken at 6 o’clock in the morning,” McAnally said. “He’s 25 years old, and look how good he looks.”

Twenty years ago, John Henry won the Oak Tree Turf Championship, capping a season that led to the male turf title, his first of seven Eclipse awards. The next year, 1981, John Henry won the Oak Tree again, one of the pegs that added up to his first of two horse-of-the-year titles. When John Henry won the Oak Tree in 1982, he became the only three-time winner of the stake. In 31 years, the only other multiple winner of the Oak Tree has been Cougar II, his two wins coming in 1971-72.

McAnally, still well behind Charlie Whittingham’s record nine winners in the Oak Tree, has won the stake twice since John Henry--with Hawkster in 1989 and Northern Spur in 1995--but no doubt it’s John Henry he thinks of every time he sends out a horse in this race. When John Henry was retired in 1984, the year of his second horse-of-the-year crown, he was a 9-year-old who had won 39 races and earned a then-record $6.5 million.

The Oak Tree race, worth $300,000, is now called the Clement L. Hirsch Memorial Turf Championship, named after the Oak Tree founder who died in March, and McAnally will try to win it for the sixth time with another undersized horse, the Argentine-bred Asidero, who’s part of Sunday’s six-horse field.

Last year’s winner, Mash One, hasn’t run since then, and he’ll try to duplicate the back-to-back feats of Cougar II and John Henry. Mash One drew the rail in the 1 1/4-mile race, which was shortened from 1 1/2 miles in 1995. Outside Mash One in the gate will be Alvo Certo, Self Feeder, Boatman, Prairieton and Asidero.

Asidero had won seven consecutive races, but only one with McAnally in the United States, when he ran in the Arlington Million on Aug. 19. Bettors sent him off as the third choice, but after leading the 1 1/4-mile race for the first mile, Asidero ran out of gas and finished fifth, beating only two horses. Chester House, the winner, was trained by Bobby Frankel, who’s running Mash One and Boatman Sunday as he tries to win Oak Tree’s most prestigious grass race for the third time.

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In another stake Sunday, Cindy’s Hero and Notable Career, the 1-2 finishers in September’s Del Mar Debutante, will be rematched in the $200,000 Oak Leaf Stakes. The Oak Leaf could furnish a few contenders for the $1-million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies, which will be run at Churchill Downs on Nov. 4.

Cindy’s Hero, trained by David Hofmans, had run second twice in her only two starts before the win at Del Mar.

Cindy’s Hero could join Chilukki, Excellent Meeting and Vivid Angel as the fourth straight filly to sweep the Del Mar Debutante and the Oak Leaf. Before those repeaters, only two horses in 28 years had won both races.

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The worst-kept secret in racing was finally confirmed Friday with a turgid Magna Entertainment announcement that Lonny Powell had resigned as president and chief executive at Santa Anita and vice president for racing operations for Magna. Rumors of Powell’s departure had been rumored during the summer, when Frank Stronach, the Magnum chief, hired Jack Liebau of Bay Meadows to oversee all of Stronach’s California racing interests.

Powell, who had been hired in June 1999 after a career as the head of Turf Paradise in Phoenix and other tracks, will become a “senior advisor” for Magna, Friday’s statement said. Powell has been unavailable for comment, but Stronach talked to the Daily Racing Form and said: “I think Lonny wanted to be in charge, and when Jack came over him, he thought he’d better look for something else.”

Meanwhile, the Magna octopus, which already controls seven tracks, rolls on: The company has signed letters of intent to buy Fairmount Park, in southern Illinois, and two Oregon properties, Portland Meadows and neighboring Multnomah Greyhound Park. Magna’s plan to build a new track in Dixon, Calif., is apparently off.

Horse Racing Notes

An unusual disqualification occurred in Friday’s fourth race. Lido, nearing the wire and an apparent winner, shifted to the outside and unseated jockey Kent Desormeaux. Lido still finished first, but because he didn’t carry the assigned weight all the way to the line, he was dropped to last by the stewards and Army Of One, the second-place finisher, became the winner. . . . Corey Nakatani, who suffered a cracked collarbone in a spill at Del Mar on Aug. 26, will work some horses this weekend and may resume riding next Wednesday or Thursday. With $10.1 million earnings in purses, Nakatani still ranks fifth nationally.