Star-Crossed Weekend at Santa Anita

There won’t be any 2000 Eclipse Awards champions winning races at Santa Anita this weekend. Surfside, favored at 3-5, was knocked off by 13-1 longshot Nany’s Sweep in Saturday’s $200,000 Santa Monica Handicap, and today trainer Bruce Headley, unhappy with the 126-pound high weight that Kona Gold was assigned, is expected to scratch his crack sprinter from the Palos Verdes Handicap.

Headley said there was a 95% chance that Kona Gold wouldn’t run in the $200,000 race that he won last year. The Palos Verdes was to be Kona Gold’s first start since he won the Breeders’ Cup Sprint at Churchill Downs in November.

Asked what the other 5% was, Headley said:

“Greed.”

Asked why, already knowing the weights, he even bothered to enter Kona Gold when post positions were drawn Friday, Headley said:

“Greed again. But in all seriousness, the horse shouldn’t be carrying that much weight this early in the year. It’s not the 126 pounds--or even the weight spread with the other horses--it’s what he’ll be expected to carry in the next race, or the race after that, that concerns me. I’ve done a good job of keeping this horse together for four years. We’d like to win the Breeders’ Cup again in the fall, and I’ve got to think about the horse with that goal in mind.”

Although Surfside, probable winner of the 2000 Eclipse for best 3-year-old filly, carried 121 pounds and spotted Nany’s Sweep four pounds in the Santa Monica, trainer Wayne Lukas didn’t cite the weight differential as an excuse.

“I was told that the track would be normal by race time, but it wasn’t,” Lukas said. “My filly has got a big old foot--she wears a size-7 plate--and it was slick and she was skating all over the place. The fractions they ran [a legitimate 44 1/5 seconds for a half-mile on a fast but drying-out track] were certainly within her capabilities if she had been comfortable with the surface.”

Instead of setting the pace, as she usually does, Surfside was fourth, three lengths behind the front-running Serenita, after half a mile. Serenita, ridden by Corey Nakatani, was four lengths ahead at the eighth pole and still looked like a winner with a sixteenth of a mile left, but Nany’s Sweep and Kent Desormeaux were flying in the middle of the track. Running seven furlongs in 1:22 2/5, they beat Serenita by one length, with Surfside finishing third, four lengths behind the winner.

Favorites were blanked on the nine-race card. Nany’s Sweep’s $28.20 mutuel was the biggest win payoff for the Santa Monica since Sister Fleet returned $34.30 in 1975 after beating a field that included Tizna and Susan’s Girl.

Nany’s Sweep, giving veteran trainer Kathy Walsh her first Grade I win, was in fifth place, more than 5 1/2 lengths behind Serenita, with an eighth of a mile to go.

“She was really good today,” said Desormeaux, who began riding the mare when she went from Kim Lloyd’s barn to Walsh’s last July. “My depth perception [at the head of the stretch] told me that if we continued to move at the rate we were, I was going to get there. So I was just hoping she would sustain her run.”

Nany’s Sweep, who has four wins in seven starts under Walsh, is six for 17 overall. The 5-year-old daughter of End Sweep and Nany’s Appeal earned $120,000 for her owner, Sydney Belzberg, who races in the name of Budget Stable, which is named after the 70 rental-car franchises he operates in Western Canada.

Surfside had won twice on off tracks, but Lukas said before the Santa Monica that she didn’t relish wet going.

“This is a big, long-striding filly that really needs to get a hold of the ground,” jockey Pat Day said. “When the track plays like it did this afternoon, it was getting away from her a little bit. She was fine up the backside and into the turn, but when I swung outside and called on her, she was spinning her wheels. It was a major effort in spite of that. But she’s a much better filly than that.”

Three horses scratched from the Santa Monica, and earlier in the week Walsh didn’t seem enthusiastic about beating Surfside.

“You don’t think you’re going to outrun a filly like that, but you can always hope,” she said. “My mare was out of conditions for other races, so this was the only race here to run her. Kent gets along good with her. She has her own personality, and Kent knows her really well. He felt that there’d be a good pace in front and it looked like it would set up for us. It looked like we had the true closer.”

Kona Gold has carried 126 pounds only three times, all in Breeders’ Cup races, which are weight-for-age stakes and require all older horses to carry that much. In the race before the most recent Breeders’ Cup, the Ancient Title Handicap at Santa Anita in October, Kona Gold won with a 124-pound impost.

“A horse hasn’t won the Palos Verdes with 126 pounds since Ancient Title did it in 1974,” Headley said. “I kind of figured they’d start me off with 123 pounds. It’s a shame, because this horse is so sharp right now and was ready to run a big race. But he’s a 7-year-old, and if I ran in this one, they’d eventually put enough weight on him to stop a train, or break a tree limb. Racing needs stars, and they’ve got a star in this horse. But they shouldn’t be piling all that weight on a star this early.”

Kona Gold might run in the $150,000 San Carlos Handicap on March 4. Kona Gold has been second twice in the San Carlos, to Big Jag in 1999 and to another Headley runner, Son Of A Pistol, last year.

“The trouble is, they’ll probably give him 126 [pounds] again in the San Carlos,” Headley said. “We could always go out of town. Other tracks heard we were scratching and they’re already calling us to run. But every place that wants us is cold. I’d hate to have to put on an overcoat to run this horse.”

Horse Racing Notes

Tiznow, in his final major workout for next Saturday’s Strub Stakes, was clocked in 1:12 1/5 for six furlongs on a muddy track. Trainer Jay Robbins said that he came out of the work in good shape, with the patch intact for the quarter crack on his right front hoof. . . . Santa Anita-based trainer Richard Mandella had winners at Aqueduct and Golden Gate Fields. Lexicon, shipped to New York to avoid Kona Gold, won the $80,925 Paumonok Handicap by 1 1/2 lengths over Say Florida Sandy, and in Northern California, Joke nosed out Deb’s Royal Flush in the $50,600 Vallejo Stakes. . . . At Gulfstream Park, favored Yonaguska, trained by Wayne Lukas and ridden by Jerry Bailey, beat City Zip by a half-length in the $150,000 Hutcheson. . . . Santa Anita’s stewards have suspended Corey Nakatani for three days, starting Wednesday, for causing interference with his mount Hussle Home at the start of Friday’s fourth race. Hussle Home, who finished third, was not disqualified.