Two Stakes Worth Watching

Although they are only a couple of 1 1/16-mile races in January, not to be confused with a 1 1/4-mile exercise on the first Saturday in May, today’s stakes at Santa Anita and Gulfstream Park are grabbers. They are filled with the horsemen and bloodlines frequently on display when the Kentucky Derby is run.

At Santa Anita, 10 horses will make their debuts as 3-year-olds in the $150,000 Santa Catalina Stakes, a race that has been won by the eventual Santa Anita Derby winner three times in the last eight years. The 1986 Santa Catalina winner, Ferdinand, went all the way and won the Kentucky Derby.

At Gulfstream, a swarm of 13 horses will run in the $100,000 Holy Bull Stakes, named after the 1994 Florida Derby winner who was voted horse of the year, even though he ran 12th in the Kentucky Derby. Go For Gin, winner of the 1994 Holy Bull, went on to win the Kentucky Derby.

Wayne Lukas and Bob Baffert, trainers who have won the Kentucky Derby seven times between them, are both represented in the Santa Catalina. Lukas is running the undefeated Scrimshaw, who after two sprint victories will be trying two turns for the first time. Scrimshaw, bought last year for $550,000, is owned by Bob and Beverly Lewis. The Lewises won the Kentucky Derby with Baffert-trained Silver Charm in 1997 and the Lukas-trained Charismatic in 1999. Scrimshaw is a son of Gulch, who sired the Lukas trainee Thunder Gulch, winner of the 1995 Derby.

With Vindication, last year’s expected 2-year-old champion, still awaiting his first start of 2003, Baffert will send out Domestic Dispute in the Santa Catalina. While winning only one of six starts, Domestic Dispute has already run the Santa Catalina distance twice. In his last race, he finished third to Toccet in the Hollywood Futurity, before being moved up to second place after a disqualification.

Lukas is also running Boston Park, a longshot, in the Holy Bull. Boston Park, no better than third in six stakes tries last year, was bred and is owned by William T. Young’s Overbrook Farm, winner of the 1996 Derby with Lukas’ Grindstone.

The expected favorite in the Holy Bull is Added Edge, the champion 2-year-old in Canada who is undefeated in four starts. Added Edge, a Kentucky-bred, is trained by Mark Casse and races for Robert J. Wilson and Team Valor, the Kentucky outfit headed by Barry Irwin and Jeff Siegel. Team Valor, which bought 75% of Added Edge from Wilson after the colt’s first race, has been an intermittent player in the Derby but has not won the race. Its best finish at Churchill Downs was a second in 1997 by Captain Bodgit, who began his campaign by running third in the Holy Bull and winning the Florida Derby.

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Azeri, favored to be named horse of the year Jan. 27, has raced most of her career against a backdrop of legal discord. First, there was infighting among members of the Allen Paulson Living Trust. Now, in Kentucky, a veterinarian has filed suit against the trust, claiming that Paulson promised him a 50% interest in Azeri and another stakes winner, Startac, before they ever ran and before Paulson died in July 2000.

David Lambert’s action in Fayette County Circuit Court was filed ahead of the scheduled auction of Azeri and Startac, along with other Paulson horses, at the Barretts sale in Pomona on March 4. Michael Paulson, Allen Paulson’s son, could not be reached Friday.

“We’re proceeding with our sale preparations,” said Jerry McMahon, president of Barretts. “We have had no instructions from the trustees to do otherwise.”

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The man-bites-dog news would be Russell Baze not winning the annual Isaac Murphy Award, named after the hall-of-fame jockey who won with 44% of his mounts. Baze, who rides at Golden Gate Fields and Bay Meadows, can’t touch Murphy’s batting average, but for the eighth consecutive year -- ever since the award began -- he’s led the nation in winning percentage.

In 2002, while winning 400 or more races for the 10th time in the last 11 years, Baze won at a .286 clip, 431 wins out of 1,508 mounts. Second among riders who rode in a minimum of 500 races was Jerry Bailey with .256. Baze’s highest percentage in the last eight years was .291; his lowest, .272.