Santa Anita Derby Losing Contenders

Medaglia d’Oro, the upset winner of Sunday’s San Felipe Stakes, won’t participate in the $750,000 Santa Anita Derby on April 6, heading instead to Aqueduct in New York for the Wood Memorial a week later.

Siphonic, the favorite who failed to win for a second consecutive time in the San Felipe, also will not return in the local Derby.

Trainer Dave Hofmans indicated Wednesday morning the Siphon colt, once considered the leading Kentucky Derby contender, will make his next start out of town. Hofmans mentioned three possibilities--the Wood, the Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland and the Arkansas Derby at Oaklawn Park. All of those races are on April 13.

Although Hofmans said Siphonic was fine after the San Felipe, where he finished third at 2-5, some blood work was done on the 3-year-old to make sure all is well. The trainer said the results are expected today.

“We had it done just to see what’s going on with him,” said Hofmans, who keeps his stables at Hollywood Park. “He looks very good and he is sound. The race Sunday was very uncharacteristic for him.

“I’m just not sure how much he likes that track. That was his second [subpar] race over there.”

In his first start of 2002, Siphonic was second to the now-sidelined Labamta Babe as the 1-10 favorite in the Santa Catalina Stakes. He did stumble badly at the start to lose his best chance.

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Jockey Martin Pedroza won the first four races on Wednesday’s card and three of the victories came for trainer Jack Carava.

After winning the first 2-year-old race of the year with 7-2 Solar Bee for trainer Lonnie Stokes, Pedroza came back with J Vivendi at 19-10 in the second , 6-1 Tara Nina in the third and Big Bad Juan at 3-1 in the fourth. He missed a fifth victory when 4-1 Morning Wine was beaten by a nose by Big Shakespeare in the sixth.

Pedroza, who had a six-winner day on Oct. 31, 1992, during the Oak Tree meet, will leave today for Dubai.

He will ride Men’s Exclusive in the $2-million Golden Shaheen on Saturday.