Oak Tree Horses Go Out on a Limb

By BILL CHRISTINE

Oct. 30, 2000 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

LOUISVILLE, Ky. —

The Oak Tree Racing Assn.’s fall meeting at Santa Anita might be a fertile feeder system for most Breeders’ Cups, but not the ones that have been run at Churchill Downs.

With two exceptions--Great Communicator on grass in 1988 and Pleasant Stage on dirt in 1991--trainers trying to make the transfer from Santa Anita to Churchill Downs have come up empty-handed here. Hoping to reverse the trend, 15 horses that ran preps at Santa Anita will run Saturday in the 17th Breeders’ Cup and the fifth to be held at Churchill Downs.

Bruce Headley, trainer of Kona Gold, one of the Santa Anita 15, saddled his horse for a third-place finish in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint at Churchill in 1998. Kona Gold, winner of the Ancient Title at Santa Anita on Oct. 14, is the 2-1 favorite for Saturday’s Sprint, according to the line set by Mike Watchmaker of the Daily Racing Form. Kona Gold was fifth in the 1998 Ancient Title.

“The turns at Churchill aren’t as banked as they are at the California tracks,” Headley said. “That could be a disadvantage.”

California trainer Neil Drysdale will send out three Breeders’ Cup horses--Fusaichi Pegasus, the 5-2 favorite in the Classic; War Chant, who is 6-1 in the Mile; and Freefourracing, 12-1 in the Juvenile Fillies. Only War Chant, who scored a sparkling win in the Oak Tree Mile two weeks ago, goes into the Breeders’ Cup off a Santa Anita prep; Fusaichi Pegasus, who is regularly based at Hollywood Park, ran three times--including a win in the San Felipe Stakes--at Santa Anita last winter, but the Kentucky Derby winner ran his prep for Saturday at Belmont Park, winning the Jerome Handicap on Sept. 23.

“The [Oak Tree-to-Churchill] numbers might not look encouraging,” Drysdale said, “but you’d have to look into it more deeply than that. How many of the horses ran second and third? How good were the horses that ran at Santa Anita and then ran here? All of those things would have to be studied. I know my horse, Hawksley Hill, prepped at Santa Anita [in 1998], and even though he didn’t win here, he ran a winning race.”

Hawksley Hill, second by a head to Da Hoss in the Breeders’ Cup Mile here, had won the Oak Tree Mile three weeks before. He’s one of 53 starters that prepped at Santa Anita before running in the four Churchill Downs Breeders’ Cups. Besides the two wins--Great Communicator in the Turf and Pleasant Stage in the Juvenile Fillies--the tally is nine seconds and five thirds at Churchill. On dirt, the record is especially bleak: One win (Pleasant Stage’s) in 39 starts. At venues other than Churchill, horses with Oak Tree preps have won 16 Breeders’ Cup races.

The Breeders’ Cup is strewn with Oak Tree failures here. On the list are Silver Charm, Bertrando (twice), Dramatic Gold, Hollywood Wildcat, Goodbye Halo, Serena’s Song, Exchange and Military. Bertrando won twice at the Oak Tree meet, then couldn’t repeat here, although in fairness, his second-place finish behind Arazi in the 1991 Juvenile was against a French dynamo that would have beaten almost anyone.

Headley, then one of Bertrando’s owners, trained the colt in 1991; by 1994, Marshall Naify had bought into the horse and his private trainer, John Shirreffs, was in charge. Shirreffs saddled Bertrando for a sixth-place finish in the Classic, after the horse had set the pace for the opening three-quarters of a mile.

“Some horses like Churchill Downs and some hate it,” Shirreffs said. “There doesn’t seem to be any in-between. I remember the track as being loose and sandy. When a track’s like that, the spray from horses in front can hit a horse in the face. Bertrando didn’t do any real running the Classic. He was terrible. His workout before the race at Churchill was slow too. Of course, he had already had been at stud and then resumed racing, and that also could have been a factor.”

How to explain Silver Charm’s Kentucky Derby win in 1997 and then his inability to beat Awesome Again over the same track in the 1998 Classic? Prepping at Santa Anita for the Derby hasn’t been a historical negative. Three of the last four Derby winners--Silver Charm, Real Quiet and Charismatic--came out of the Santa Anita Derby.

The difference between the spring and the fall at Churchill Downs is the difference in the racing surface. Many of the trainers talk about it, including Bob Baffert, who trained Silver Charm and Real Quiet, and Drysdale.

In the spring, about two weeks before the Derby is run, Churchill can change dramatically. By Derby day, the track seems to be pancaked down, the better to produce fast times in the run for the roses.

“The track changes in the fall,” said Baffert, who has had a year-round division of horses at Churchill in recent years. “It’s all up to the horse. If a horse is doing well [in training], he’ll handle it. But if he’s not doing well, he won’t.”

Drysdale, without complaining, said that there is more clay in the Churchill Downs surface now than there was in May, when Fusaichi Pegasus won the Derby. The change doesn’t appear to have affected his grown-up $4-million yearling. On Sunday, at 6:30 a.m., Fusaichi Pegasus worked seven furlongs in 1:27 4/5, and Andy Durnin, his exercise rider, was gushing so much that the echo carried all the way to Indiana.

“He’s as good or better than he ever felt before,” Durnin said. “I’ve been on a lot of horses in the last 18 years, but I’ve never had a feeling like that before.”

Of Baffert’s six Breeders’ Cup contenders, only Arabian Light and Point Given (both pre-entered for the Juvenile) prepped away from Santa Anita. The others are Captain Steve (Classic), Flame Thrower (Juvenile), Caffe Latte (Filly & Mare Turf) and Notable Career (Juvenile Fillies). Flame Thrower and Notable Career were the respective winners of the Norfolk and Oak Leaf at Santa Anita. Flame Thrower is even 7-2, the mild favorite, in the Juvenile. It may be the Oak Tree stigma, not the other 13 horses, that he must overcome the most.

Notes

Montjeu, last year’s Arc de Triomphe winner, was on a plane from France to Kentucky on Sunday, after days of indecision about whether he’d run in the $2-million Breeders’ Cup Turf. Ladbrokes, the British bookmaking concern, has made Montjeu and Kalanisi the 4-1 co-favorites in the Turf. . . . The Turf lost a contender Sunday when trainer Bobby Frankel announced that Boatman, who ran second to stablemate Mash One in the Clement L. Hirsch Memorial Championship at Santa Anita on Oct. 8, has sustained an ankle injury. Boatman’s replacement in the 14-horse field is Subtle Power, the last horse on the also-eligible list. . . . Plenty Of Light is out of the Distaff because of an ankle problem. She is owned by Aaron and Marie Jones.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Road Runners

Horses that prepped during the current Oak Tree meet at Santa Anita and will run in the Breeders’ Cup at Churchill Downs Saturday, beginning at 10 a.m. PST. TV--Channel 4.

Horse Oak Tree Finish

CLASSIC

Tiznow: 1st

Captain Steve: 2nd

Euchre: 3rd

DISTAFF

Tranquility Lake*: 1st

Speaking Of Time: 2nd

SPRINT

Kona Gold: 1st

Elaborate: 3rd

JUVENILE