Mash One’s Victory Goes Into Yearbook

Trainer Bobby Frankel has an equine sequel to “Same Time, Next Year,” the Broadway play that became a movie in 1978.

Instead of Alan Alda and Ellen Burstyn, Frankel’s casting starts with Mash One, a seldom-seen but drop-dead opportunist from Chile. Mash One, ridden by David Flores, won Sunday’s $300,000 Clement L. Hirsch Turf Championship at Santa Anita, a victory that came a year after his last start, which had produced a win in the same stake.

Mash One’s unique consecutive victories in the Hirsch, formerly known as the Oak Tree Turf Championship, give him a niche alongside Cougar II, a back-to-back winner of the stake in 1971-72, and John Henry, who won the race three consecutive times in 1981-83.

Foot problems, and surgery early this year for a chipped ankle, had made Mash One an almost forgotten horse in Frankel’s barn.

“He could be a very nice horse if he had some good feet under him,” Frankel said from New York, where he ran horses without much success at Belmont Park over the weekend.

Frankel, watching the Hirsch on TV, agreed that his other starter at Santa Anita, Boatman, might have won had he and jockey Victor Espinoza not been trapped on the rail in the stretch run. Boatman finished second, beaten by 1 1/4 lengths, as he and Mash One combined to give the Frankel barn all but $60,000 of the purse.

“Espinoza rode Boatman right,” Frankel said. “He just didn’t get lucky.”

Five days before Sunday’s race, a blacksmith patched one of Mash One’s cracked hooves for the umpteenth time. There has been so much work on the 6-year-old’s feet that Frankel couldn’t remember which hoof was repaired this time.

Last Wednesday, John Amerman, who races Mash One in a family partnership and with Roberto Ossa, stopped by Frankel’s barn at Hollywood Park. He found Frankel hemming and hawing about the possibility of running the horse in the Hirsch. Since Amerman bought the horse in Chile and brought him to California in 1998, Mash One had run only three times. Frankel even shipped him all the way to Tokyo last fall, after the victory at Santa Anita, but recurring foot problems kept Mash One from running in the Japan Cup.

At the barn Wednesday, Amerman left Frankel with this advice: “Run him.” The victory turned around what had been a dreary weekend for both the owner and the trainer. On Saturday, Frankel ran six horses in races worth $2.6 million in New York, Kentucky and California, and the best he could do was a pair of seconds. One of those disappointments was Happyanunoit, a classy mare that ran next to last for the Amermans as the odds-on choice in the Flower Bowl Handicap at Belmont.

“I needed that win from Mash One,” Frankel said. “Now I hope I can just keep him together long enough for the next one [the $150,000 Carleton F. Burke Handicap at Santa Anita on Oct. 29]. I don’t think we’ll consider the Japan race again. I wouldn’t want to go through what we did last year.”

Mash One paid $7.80 to win. The Clement Hirsch was the start of a big day for Flores, who returned to ride Notable Career to a four-length win over Euro Empire in another Grade I, the $200,000 Oak Leaf Stakes. Notable Career was trainer Bob Baffert’s fourth consecutive winner in the Oak Leaf and gave Baffert a sweep of Santa Anita’s major fall races for 2-year-olds. Baffert saddled Flame Thrower for a win Saturday in the Norfolk, and Sunday at Keeneland the trainer added another formidable contender to his lineup for the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile when Arabian Light swept to a three-length victory in the $400,000 Lane’s End Farm Breeders’ Futurity.

Both Euro Empire and Cindy’s Hero had defeated Notable Career at Del Mar, Cindy’s Hero’s win coming by three-quarters of a length in the Del Mar Debutante. Cindy’s Hero, the slight favorite Sunday, ran third, beaten by about four lengths. Notable Career paid $5.20.

Horse Racing Notes

Collect The Cash, bred and owned by Frank Stronach, sprung a 25-1 upset in the $500,000 Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup at Keeneland, beating Blue Moon by three-quarters of a length. Shane Sellers, who won the earlier stake with Arabian Light, rode Collect The Cash. Gaviola’s six-race winning streak ended with a sixth-place finish in the Queen Elizabeth. . . . Forbidden Apple, giving Jean-Luc Samyn his third stakes victory of the weekend, defeated Affirmed Success to win the $250,000 Kelso Handicap at Belmont Park. . . . Laffit Pincay’s victory with Jab was the 8,984th of his career. . . . Black Ruby, stretched out to 870 yards, beat Alydars Moonfire in a hard drive at Fresno, giving the 8-year-old mule her eighth victory in a row. Black Ruby, the only mule to earn more than $100,000, has won 29 of 34 starts overall, with four seconds and one third.