Match Race at Del Mar Proves Close, Cordial

This was no reincarnation of Seabiscuit beating Ligaroti 65 years ago, but Sunday’s match race between horses ridden by Patrick Valenzuela and Julie Krone had an ending that was just as close.

Both races were settled by a nose -- the margin of victory for Valenzuela’s Chester’s Choice over Krone’s Woke Up Dreamin -- but instead of pushing and shoving, as there had been when George Woolf’s Seabiscuit beat Spec Richardson’s Ligaroti, Sunday’s jockeys were models of comportment, and even said nice things about one another later.

Not much like the sight of Richardson chasing after Woolf for his share after they had agreed to split the riders’ cut of the purse.

“Did they run hard or what?” Krone said to Valenzuela as they were pulling up their horses.

Valenzuela shot back: “Congratulations on a great race.”

Unlike Seabiscuit and Ligaroti, these were not stakes horses, and the 1 1/16 miles taxed both. Chester’s Choice, who ran nine times before breaking his maiden three weeks ago, seemed rubber-legged in midstretch, when Woke Up Dreamin, a $50,000 claimer last year, opened a 2 1/2-length lead.

But Valenzuela kept working on Chester’s Choice, and from the outside they nailed Woke Up Dreamin on the wire, in a time of 1:46 1/5. Chester’s Choice, trained by Summer Mayberry, came away with $35,000 of the $50,000 purse, paying $3.60 for $2.

Valenzuela punched his whip toward the sky after passing the finish line.

“Look at Pat,” someone in the crowd of 20,593 said in the clubhouse. “He looks like he just won the Kentucky Derby.”

Returning to the winner’s circle with Chester’s Choice, Valenzuela sailed his whip, like a javelin thrower, about 20 yards into the hands of his valet.

Woke Up Dreamin, trained by Bob Baffert, went off the 1-2 favorite.

Both riders came up empty in Sunday’s two stakes. Spring Star beat Magic Mission by a neck and Garden In The Rain by another nose in the $191,000 Palomar Handicap. Krone rode Garden In The Rain; and Rhiana, with Valenzuela up, was last in the five-horse field.

Later, Victory Encounter was a one-length winner of the $87,450 Torrey Pines Stakes as Valenzuela and Pocketfullofpesos finished fifth. Krone did not have a mount in that race.

Spring Star’s win, as the 3-2 favorite, came after the three stewards disallowed a foul claim by Corey Nakatani, riding Magic Mission.

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Trainer Wesley Ward was fined $30,000 after four of his horses -- three winners and the other a second-place finisher -- tested positive for excessive amounts of clenbuterol during an eight-day period at Santa Anita in January 2002. The purses, totaling $60,400, were redistributed among owners of other horses.

Clenbuterol is a bronchodilator, used to address breathing problems, that is permitted for racing in small amounts.

“These were isolated incidents,” Ward said. “All the trainers use clenbuterol. My foreman gives my horses their dosages, and that’s all I can say about that. I’ve had no positives before, and none since then. I’ve been training horses since 1989, and I rode horses for many years before that, and I’ve had a clean record. The whole thing’s been a jolt, financially. I paid $10,000 for a lawyer, besides paying the fine, and I just want to get the whole thing behind me.”

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Nebraska Tornado, winner of the Prix du Moulin at Longchamp in Paris, will run in the Breeders’ Cup, either in the Mile or the Filly and Mare, at Santa Anita on Oct. 25. The 3-year-old filly is trained by Andre Fabre, who won the 1993 Breeders’ Cup Classic with 133-1 shot Arcangues at Santa Anita in 1993....Pat Day rode Buy The Sport, a 48-1 shot owned by Georgica Stable, to victory in Saturday’s Gazelle Handicap at Belmont Park. A day later, Day was aboard another winning Georgica longshot, Indy Five Hundred, in the Garden City Handicap. Indy Five Hundred paid $17.80 as the 3-5 favorite, Dimitrova, ran second.