Drysdale Completes the Double Play

A trainer who’s busy on three fronts, Neil Drysdale won two stakes Sunday, the richest the $700,000 Explosive Bid Handicap at the Fair Grounds in New Orleans.

Sarafan’s narrow win over favored Beat Hollow in Louisiana came after Drysdale, who remained at Santa Anita, saddled Bella Bellucci, at 4-5, for a half-length win in the $80,925 Santa Paula Stakes.

Bella Bellucci, running for the first time since a third-place finish in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies at Belmont Park five months ago, gives Drysdale a solid contender for the Kentucky Oaks, the race for 3-year-old fillies that will be run at Churchill Downs on May 3, the day before the Kentucky Derby.

Drysdale might also be represented in the Derby, the race he won with Fusaichi Pegasus in 2000. Fusaichi Pegasus was Japanese-owned, and on Wednesday at Aqueduct Drysdale will run Sunday Break, Japanese-owned and bred in Japan, in an allowance race that could set the colt up for the Wood Memorial on April 13. Fusaichi Pegasus won the Wood in his final Derby prep.

Sunday Break, winner of his last two races at Santa Anita, has yet to run in a stake.

“He needs another race before he moves up to (graded) competition,” Drysdale said. “If he runs well Wednesday, he’ll come back in the Wood.”

Gary Stevens will ride Sunday Break on Wednesday, when he faces five rivals at 11/8 miles. The field also includes two horses trained by Todd Pletcher, one of them Smoked Em, who was moved up from third to second after a disqualification in the Whirlaway Stakes at Aqueduct on Feb. 9.

Drysdale sent Sarafan to the Fair Grounds after the 5-year-old gelding lost by a neck to Decarchy in the Jimmy Kilroe Handicap at Santa Anita three weeks ago. Sunday’s grass win, by a neck over Beat Hollow, was Sarafan’s first since last August and ended his six-race losing streak. Even The Score, at 70-1, finished third in the Explosive Bid, 21/2 lengths behind Beat Hollow. Northcote Road was fourth. Hap, the second choice in the betting, was eighth and California shippers Designed For Luck and Suances were 11th and 12th, respectively, in the 14-horse field.

Sarafan, ridden by Corey Nakatani, ran 11/8 miles on a firm course in 1:484/5 and paid $19.40 for $2. The winner overtook Beat Hollow in the last sixteenth of a mile.

“When I brought my horse to the outside at the eighth pole, he kicked on,” Nakatani said. “He was pretty impressive.”

During his losing streak, Sarafan had rung up two seconds and one third, losing by less than a length in those three races.

“He’s been unlucky,” Drysdale said. “He’s lost some races that maybe he should have won.”

At Santa Anita, Mike Smith rode Bella Bellucci in her win and returned to register another stakes victory with Hugh Hefner in the $139,125 Crystal Water Handicap. Hugh Hefner, trained by Marty Jones, paid $16.20 in only his second start since finishing eighth in last June’s Belmont Stakes.

Hugh Hefner held off Spinelessjellyfish by a nose, with Native Desert, the 2-1 favorite, finishing third.