Frankel Decries Set-Up of Track

Trainer Bobby Frankel, who had already lost all chance of breaking the one-year record for purses, unleashed a loud trackside tirade Tuesday after his favored Rolly Polly had finished seventh in the roughly run $114,700 Monrovia Handicap at Santa Anita.

Rolly Polly, who had been undefeated in three starts down the hill, and several other horses in the 12-horse field were caught with no room on the inside during the stretch run of the 6 1/2-furlong grass race. Victor Espinoza, riding Adoration, the ninth-place finisher, was forced to stand up in the irons to steady his horse. Lil Sister Stich defeated Pina Colada by a head to win the race, but had to survive a stewards’ inquiry, which also involved I’m The Business, the third-place finisher, before the result was declared official.

The portable inner rail had been set at 24 feet from the permanent rail that rims the training track. Frankel angrily said that this configuration didn’t give the large field enough room.

“Why don’t they make it 34 feet if they really want to get somebody killed?” Frankel said. “All they care about is protecting the [grass] course. A jockey or a horse is going to getting killed, the way they do things. The trouble is that none of these tracks care about the horses or the jockeys.”

Leif Dickinson, turf course and grounds superintendent at Santa Anita, said that the inner rail had been set only 15 feet from the permanent rail for the first four days of the meet, which began last Thursday.

“We used to have a 30-foot position, but we don’t use that anymore,” Dickinson said. “We thought that 24 feet allowed plenty of room. We think of the horses first when we make these decisions.”

Frankel began the card needing to win the fifth race and the Monrovia to break the purse record of $17,842,358 set by Wayne Lukas in 1988. Sumitas ran third in the fifth race, good for a purse of $8,400 and leaving Frankel with $17,748,340.

According to the Equibase chart footnotes of the Monrovia, Rolly Polly “was blocked and boxed in, then steadied off heels [of other horses] in mid-stretch and could not recover.”

Lil Sister Stich, who paid $17 for $2, was ridden by Laffit Pincay for trainer Doug O’Neill. Pincay’s only other Monrovia win was with Little Happiness in 1978. Pincay, who turned 56 on Sunday, won two other races Tuesday.

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Alex Solis, who took off Sunday and Tuesday after suffering a mild concussion in a spill Saturday, is expected back today, when he’s scheduled to ride Kona Gold, the 9-5 favorite in the El Conejo Handicap.

Solis, who tied with Victor Espinoza for the riding title at the recent Hollywood Park meet, is the defending champion at Santa Anita, where he won 76 races last winter. Solis has ridden Kona Gold in 25 of the horse’s 26 starts, missing only his debut at Hollywood Park in 1998.

With Solis, Kona Gold has 13 wins, six seconds and one third.

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George Bradvica, an executive with Fairplex Park, said there’s a chance the close of the track’s 2003 meet will overlap with the Oak Tree meet at Santa Anita, in order to facilitate some prep races for the Breeders’ Cup that will be run at Santa Anita on Oct. 25.

As the schedule now stands, the 17-day Los Angeles County Fair meet at Fairplex will open Sept. 12 and run through Sept. 28.

The Oak Tree meet is scheduled to open Oct. 1, but Oak Tree officials, according to Bradvica, may ask the California Horse Racing Board to open Sept. 27 and run again Sept. 28. The extra weekend would give Oak Tree more opportunity to schedule races that lead up to the Breeders’ Cup.

“There’s a chance that we could make something work that would help both tracks,” Bradvica said.

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Pat Valenzuela was handed a three-day suspension, starting next Wednesday, for his role in the interference that resulted in the disqualification of his mount, California Gold, from third to fourth place in a race Sunday.