York Made Mark at Santa Anita

There are 15 races at Santa Anita older than the Malibu Stakes, but since the 50-year-old Malibu was re-positioned to the day after Christmas in 1984, it has acquired the patina of some of the older fixtures. An opening day at Santa Anita without the Malibu would be like a Dec. 26 without standing in the exchange line.

The 51st Malibu, which has drawn 11 horses for today’s 66th Santa Anita opener, has risen to the top by crawling and clawing, which might be expected of a seven-furlong race on the last page of the calendar. Santa Anita didn’t make the Malibu a $100,000 race until 1984, and the North American Graded Stakes Committee didn’t anoint it as a Grade I until 1995. Even now, at a modest $200,000, the Malibu is dwarfed by 15 richer stakes during the 85-day season.

In the early days of the Malibu, with the horses competing for purses that were less than $30,000, jockey Ray York could have been tricked into believing he might win almost every running of the stake. The race was called the Malibu Sequet in the beginning, when York won it with Phil D. in 1952, Imbros in 1954 and Determine in 1955. Of the first four Malibus, the only one York didn’t win was in 1953, which went to the filly A Gleam, under Eddie Arcaro, as York finished third aboard Big Noise.

York, 69, lives in Taft and came out of retirement to ride one race at Santa Anita in 2000 so he could say that he had competed in seven decades. York plans to attend the races at Santa Anita this weekend.

He was told that the year Phil D. won the Malibu, at 11-1 in a 15-horse field, he beat seven jockeys who would be elected to the Racing Hall of Fame: Arcaro, Ralph Neves, Ted Atkinson, Johnny Longden, Bill Shoemaker, Eric Guerin and Steve Brooks.

“How about that,” York said. “Isn’t that something? I might have made [the Hall of Fame] too, but they take a look at my purse total and decide that it’s not much. If purses back then had been close to what they are now, I might have had a better chance.”

York won 3,082 races, 300 more than Guerin and 600 more than another contemporary, Jack Westrope, who was voted into the Hall of Fame this year. But York’s purses totaled only $14.2 million. This year, Jerry Bailey’s purses are $22.6 million.

Determine was the first of a short list of Kentucky Derby winners to run in the Malibu. “I don’t know if he was the best horse I ever rode, but he was the horse that was the best to me,” York said. “You start out in this game hoping to win the Derby some day, and he gave me everything I wanted in 1954.”

Determine was the first of eight gray and roan horses to win the Derby.

“At Churchill Downs that year, everybody was saying that a gray horse would never win the Derby,” York said.

“If ever a gray was going to win the race, they said, it would have been the year before. Native Dancer was the heavy favorite in 1953, but he had that bad trip and Dark Star barely beat him.”

Limited to soon-to-be 4-year-olds, the Malibu is the opener to the progressively longer three-race Strub series, which concludes with the San Fernando and the Strub Stakes. Only five horses -- none since Precisionist in 1985 -- have swept the three. Determine won two of the three in 1955, when the Strub was called the Santa Anita Maturity, and Determine needed help from upstairs to win that race.

In one of the most controversial decisions in California racing history, stewards W.C. Buchanan, J. Kingsley Macomber and James Tunney disqualified Miz Clementine, the favorite, and moved up Determine, who had been beaten by a neck. Lucille Markey of Kentucky’s Calumet Farm, the owner of Miz Clementine, boycotted California races for many years afterward.

Arcaro, riding Miz Clementine, had been whipping left-handed through the stretch, causing his mount to drift to the outside and brush with Determine. York always said that the contact made a difference at the wire, but for about 20 years Arcaro publicly insisted that Miz Clementine was jobbed.

Then one day York, who had been breaking some yearlings in Northern California, ran into Joe DiMaggio at Bay Meadows.

“I was playing golf with Arcaro the other day,” DiMaggio said, “and the Miz Clementine-Determine race came up.”

“What did Eddie say?” York asked.

DiMaggio smiled and said:

“He said, ‘I was never going to beat that other [guy], so I just took my best shot.’ ”

Of other Kentucky Derby winners who came back and attempted sprinting in the Malibu, some succeeded and others didn’t.

Shoemaker, who won the Malibu a record eight times and trained one winner, Diazo in 1993, used a hand ride to pilot Spectacular Bid to his 1979 victory in what was then a world-record time of 1:20. In 1986, 29 years after he had won his first Malibu with Round Table under 130 pounds, Shoemaker rode Ferdinand to a 1 1/4-length win over Snow Chief. Ferdinand, winning for the first time since the Derby, was the third betting choice.

At only one turn, the Malibu can magnify mistakes. In 1966, Lucky Debonair broke through the gate before the start and dropped Shoemaker to the ground. After he was reloaded, Lucky Debonair finished fifth.

In 1997, Silver Charm looked like the 3-10 cinch that bettors made him -- the rest of the field was 7-1 or higher. But Silver Charm was caught in a hole down on the rail and lost to Lord Grillo by a half-length.

The longer distances of the San Fernando and the Strub told a truer story. Silver Charm was a strong winner both times.

Ray York won his fourth, and last, Malibu with More Megaton in 1963.

“All those wins in that race had nothing to do with anything, really,” he said. “It was just that in those days, I seemed to have one good 3-year-old after another to ride.”

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The Facts

*--* A look at the winter meeting at Santa Anita: DATES OF MEET * 85 days, today through April 20 RACING SCHEDULE * Wednesday through Sunday, plus Dec. 31, Jan. 20, Feb. 17. No Wednesday racing Jan. 22 and Feb. 19 POST TIMES * 1 p.m. on weekdays, 12:30 p.m. on weekends and holidays, with these exceptions: Noon on Thursday, Jan. 25, Feb. 1, March 1, April 5; 11 a.m. on Jan. 26; 3 p.m. on April 11, 18 GRADE I RACES * Today, $200,000 Malibu; Saturday, $200,000 La Brea; Jan. 25, $200,000 Santa Monica Handicap; Feb. 9, $200,000 Las Virgenes; Feb. 16, $200,000 Santa Maria Handicap; March 1, $1-million Santa Anita Handicap; March 2, $200,000 San Carlos Handicap; March 8, $300,000 Santa Anita Oaks; March 9, $300,000 Santa Margarita Handicap; April 5, $750,000 Santa Anita Derby; April 20, $400,000 San Juan Capistrano OTHER RACES * Strub series (Thursday, $200,000 Malibu; Jan. 11, $200,000 San Fernando; Feb. 1, $400,000 Strub); Jan. 25, Sunshine Millions ($750,000 Distaff; $500,000 Turf; $250,000 Sprint; $250,000 Oaks); March 1, $400,000 Kilroe Mile, $200,000 San Rafael; March 16, $250,000 San Felipe LAST SEASON’S LEADERS * Owner, Thoroughbred Corp., $943,273 in purses; trainer, Bob Baffert, 23 wins; jockey, Alex Solis, 76 wins

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