He May Make Run for Roses

Having retired from riding, Laffit Pincay is no longer a threat to win another Hollywood Futurity, but that doesn’t make him ineligible to rate horses that do.

“This looks like a good horse,” Pincay said Saturday as he made the winner’s-circle presentation following Lion Heart’s 3 1/2-length win in the 23rd running of the stake. “He finished well, did it in a good time and looks like he can run all day.”

Pincay, who holds the record for Futurity wins with four, was in the neighborhood Saturday, helping unveil Pincay Drive, the street that honors him at the 90th Street entrance to the Inglewood track.

“They’ve been promising to name a street after me in [his native] Panama for 10 years,” Pincay said at the ceremony. “I’ve got to get one of the pictures of this and send it down there to remind them.”

Lion Heart, now undefeated in three starts, all since late October, is the kind of colt who would tempt a world-class rider such as Pincay to come out of retirement. Gary Stevens rode Lion Heart in his first start, at Santa Anita the day before the Breeders’ Cup, and Mike Smith has been aboard for the two wins at Hollywood Park.

Paying $3 to win as he disposed of only four rivals, the front-running Lion Heart ran 1 1/16 miles in 1:42 4/5, picking up $225,600 of the $376,000 purse. Only one of the horses behind him was stakes-tested. St Averil finished second, a length ahead of That’s An Outrage.

“This is an exceptional horse,” trainer Patrick Biancone said. “He’s gone from six furlongs to seven furlongs to a mile and a sixteenth, with the same result. The way he behaved in the paddock, the way he ran, he acted like he owned the place. He’s so confident, so sure of himself. He thinks that nothing can happen to him, and so far he’s been right.

“He’s fast at the start, and after that he keeps going. We’re not going to try to strangle him, because he’s just a natural galloper, maybe a new Secretariat, you never know.”

Lion Heart, a $1.4-million February purchase by Michael Tabor and Derrick Smith, is making a late bid for an Eclipse Award, in a division devoid of a convincing contender.

“[Winning an Eclipse] depends on [the voters],” Biancone said. “If it’s up to me, I vote for him for sure.”

Lion Heart is expected to take a Santa Anita route to the Kentucky Derby. Biancone suggested one prep before the Santa Anita Derby, then on to Churchill Downs for the Kentucky Derby on May 1.

“He certainly answered the question about his ability to get a distance,” Smith said. “At the end, he was starting to stride away again, which is a very good sign. You hate for them to be floating at the end, just hanging on. We’ll find out if he can go farther, but I think he is going to get better as he runs.”

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Subsequent X-rays showed that Julie Krone cracked two ribs when she was injured in a two-horse spill on Dec. 12. She is hoping to resume riding in January at Santa Anita.... Mike Smith also won the other stake on the card, riding Katdogawn to victory in the Dahlia Handicap.