Valenzuela Seeks Sweep

Jockey Pat Valenzuela can join some exclusive company if he holds off Julie Krone today and locks up the Del Mar riding championship.

Valenzuela, who has ridden 51 winners, four more than Krone, has also won this year’s titles at Santa Anita and Hollywood Park. Since the 1930s, only four jockeys have swept titles at Southern California’s three major tracks in the same year, and none since Gary Stevens in 1988.

Before Stevens, there were five Santa Anita-Hollywood-Del Mar sweeps, by three jockeys. Chris McCarron ran the table in 1983, Laffit Pincay won all three titles in 1979 and Bill Shoemaker -- in 1951, ’53 and ’54 -- was the first to pull off the triple.

Valenzuela has already won five more races here than last year, when he rode to his fourth Del Mar title and his first since 1991. Valenzuela, 40, was 23 when he first led the Del Mar standings in 1986.

“It would be a big thing if I won [the meet title],” said Valenzuela, who with Chester’s Choice nosed out Krone and Woke Up Dreamin in a match race Sunday. “You’re competing with a lot of very good jockeys down here. Julie’s been the golden girl here this summer. She won on Candy Ride [in the $1-million Pacific Classic], and she’s shown everyone that she’s a tremendous rider.”

As the 43-day meet at Del Mar ends today, Valenzuela and Krone are riding almost every race on the 10-race card, some on horses that will be favorites or second choices in the betting. Valenzuela will miss one race, the 10th, and Krone has mounts in every race except the seventh.

Both jockeys will be riding in the feature, the $250,000 Del Mar Futurity. Valenzuela has the assignment on Perfect Moon, the only stakes winner in the five-horse field, and Krone will be aboard Siphonizer, who broke his maiden here on Aug. 2 and then finished fifth, 3 1/2 lengths behind Perfect Moon, in the Best Pal Stakes two weeks later.

The recently sold Perfect Moon will be ridden for the third straight race by Valenzuela, who besides the Best Pal won the Hollywood Juvenile with the 2-year-old gelding on July 17. Doug O’Neill is the new trainer for Perfect Moon, who previously was in the care of Mel Stute.

Cooperation, a seven-length maiden winner on Aug. 17, might spoil the Futurity for both Valenzuela and Krone. Jerry Bailey is in from New York to ride Cooperation for trainer Bob Baffert, who is seeking his eighth consecutive Futurity victory. With 23 wins, Baffert has already locked up his seventh successive meet title, tying the seven consecutive titles registered by Farrell Jones from 1960 to 1966.

Also running in the Futurity are recent maiden winners Minister Eric and Gulf Of Mexico. Minister Eric and Siphonizer are both trained by Richard Mandella, who has won many of Del Mar’s top stakes, including the Pacific Classic twice, but has been blanked in the Futurity.