Wins Let Mandella Make Grand Plans

Trainer Richard Mandella broke into the Breeders’ Cup win column with at least 76 trombones in 1993, winning two of the races at Santa Anita and adding a pair of victories in $100,000 undercard stakes on the same day.

Since then, Mandella has fired some fairly formidable horses the Breeders’ Cup’s way, but win No. 3 has eluded him. Out of 11 post-1993 starters, his best showings have been a couple of seconds.

Until this past weekend, Mandella wasn’t even sure he’d be represented at the 19th Breeders’ Cup, to be run Oct. 26 at Arlington Park in suburban Chicago, but his barn began heating up Saturday at Santa Anita, and by Sunday night it had come to a boil. Today finds Mandella making reservations for three horses to go to Chicago.

After Listen Indy ran a respectable third in Saturday’s Norfolk, earning a spot in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, Mandella won two races worth $800,000 in just 34 minutes Sunday. Pleasantly Perfect beat Momentum, the 9-10 favorite, by 3 1/4 lengths in the Goodwood Handicap to punch his ticket for the Breeders’ Cup Classic, and then Mandella saddled The Tin Man for a one-length win over another favorite, Sarafan, in the Clement L. Hirsch Memorial Turf Championship. The Tin Man will move on to the Breeders’ Cup Turf, the race Mandella’s Kotashaan won in 1993 en route to the horse-of-the-year title.

Besides being sons of Kentucky Derby winners--Pleasantly Perfect was sired by Pleasant Colony and The Tin Man is by Affirmed--Sunday’s winners have another thing in common: They’re both lucky to still be racing. As a yearling, Pleasantly Perfect had a virus near his heart sac, explaining why his heart rate plummeted instead of rising every time he exercised. The Tin Man suffered a tendon injury--sometimes career-ending--as an unraced 2-year-old.

Pleasantly Perfect, ridden by Alex Solis, had never run in a stake until his fourth-place finish in the Pacific Classic at Del Mar in August. This time, paying $9.40 as the third choice, he ran 1 1/8 miles in 1:46.80, barely missing Bertrando’s stakes record of 1:46.72 in 1994.

“Look at his form,” Mandella said. “He gets better and smarter with each race. I think he’s pretty smart right now.”

Mike Smith, who rode Pleasantly Perfect the first time he won, has ridden The Tin Man in all 11 of his races, six of them victories. The 4-year-old gelding paid $7 and covered 1 1/4 miles in 1:58.93, slightly slower than Admise’s stakes-record 1:58.48 in 1996.

“He ran a dynamite race,” Smith said. “He had to run like this to prove he belongs. I knew Sarafan was coming at us in the stretch, but my horse was really reaching in the last part.”

Earlier at Santa Anita, favored Composure--also ridden by Smith--was a three-length winner of the Oak Leaf, giving trainer Bob Baffert his fifth win in the stake in the last six years. Composure is headed for the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies.

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Trainer Saeed bin Suroor said that Marienbard would probably run in both the Breeders’ Cup Turf and the Japan Cup (Nov. 24) after his three-quarter-length win over Sulamani in the Arc de Triomphe at Longchamp. British bookmakers have made Sulamani the 4-1 favorite for the Turf, with Marienbard and High Chaparral, the third-place finisher in the Arc, listed at 5-1. Marienbard, who was 15-1 in Paris for the Arc and 7-1 in the U.S., gave Sheik Mohammed’s Godolphin Racing and jockey Frankie Dettori their third wins in the Arc.

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At Keeneland, Take Charge Lady outfinished You to win the $546,000 Overbook Spinster Stakes, with Printemps finishing third.