Kona Seeks Milestone

Kona Gold can join an exclusive club if he earns his 14th win in today’s $100,000 El Conejo Handicap, the first stakes of 2003 at Santa Anita.

The Java Gold gelding can become the fifth 9-year-old to win a stakes in Arcadia.

Kona Gold is the 9-5 favorite on Jeff Tufts’ morning line in the 5 1/2-furlong El Conejo.

The 123-pound highweight, Kona Gold, who has banked almost $2.2 million, will be seeking his seventh win in 13 starts at Santa Anita and his second in the El Conejo. He won in 1999, beating, among others, rival Big Jag and Mr. Doubledown.

Avanzado, who has won three of four since arriving in this country from South America, is the 7-2 second choice. The 6-year-old hasn’t raced since finishing seventh over a sloppy track in a Grade I at Laurel on Nov. 16.

Race of the day: Jimmy Z, who ended a long losing streak when winning the Forty Niner Handicap at Golden Gate Fields on Nov. 29, will try for a repeat in the $75,000 Lafayette Handicap at the same track. Eight others are entered in the one-mile race, half of them trained by Jerry Hollendorfer.

Who’s hot: Bruce Levine. The trainer won with seven of his first 23 starters at Aqueduct.

Who’s not: Mike Smith. The jockey is one for 22 through the first five days of the Santa Anita meet.

Exotically speaking: A superfecta in the ninth keying Le Matin on top with Spoonman and Schooner in the two hole and those two plus Continentalcolonel, Thunder Twice and El Prado In Action in the third and fourth spots.

Winners: Previous day/meet total: 2/10. Money: Previous day/meet total: $7.20/$50.60. Total money bet: $88.