Oak Tree’s Opening Act: Azeri and Halfbridled

At center stage as the Oak Tree Racing Assn. opens its Breeders’ Cup meet Sunday at Santa Anita are a mare and a filly, Azeri and Halfbridled. They seldom lose, and although Halfbridled hasn’t run that much, that shouldn’t be held against her.

Nothing is held against Azeri, not even last year’s horse-of-the-year ballot, by which she outdistanced all the males to take the title. If the 5-year-old can win Sunday’s $300,000 Lady’s Secret Handicap, as she did last year, her winning streak will be at 12 and that magical number of 16, ascribed to Citation and Cigar, will not be far off. After the Lady’s Secret, the next race for Azeri would be the Distaff on Oct. 25, when the eight Breeders’ Cup races, worth about $14 million, are to be run.

By contrast, Halfbridled is a youngster, having run only twice, but with such brilliance that her reputation already precedes her. Halfbridled’s Hall of Fame trainer, Richard Mandella, has been trying to restrain himself, but already he is stacking up the inexperienced Halfbridled with Phone Chatter, with whom he won the 1993 Juvenile Fillies, the last time the Breeders’ Cup was held at Santa Anita.

Halfbridled will be an odds-on favorite to win Sunday’s $250,000 Oak Leaf Stakes, one of four Breeders’ Cup preps on the opening-day card. Besides the Lady’s Secret, the others are the $500,000 Yellow Ribbon, which could qualify a few horses for the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf; and the $250,000 Clement L. Hirsch Memorial Turf Championship, which features Storming Home, one of the top contenders for the Breeders’ Cup Turf. In order to squeeze in all of its Breeders’ Cup preps -- five more are scheduled for next weekend -- Oak Tree worked out a deal for this early opener with Fairplex Park and the California Horse Racing Board. For the first time, Oak Tree racing is overlapping with Fairplex, whose Los Angeles County Fair meet ends Sunday in Pomona.

Halfbridled is a daughter of Unbridled, the 1990 Kentucky Derby winner who died, while only a 14-year-old, in 2001, and the Deputy Minister mare Half Queen. Unbridled also won the Breeders’ Cup Classic in the fall of his Derby year. Half Queen, whose sire was the champion 2-year-old male of 1981, was a well-regarded prospect, costing $325,000 at auction, who ran only six times, winning once.

“Half Queen was a very quick filly, but not very sound,” Mandella said.

Halfbridled’s quickness was the conversation piece of Del Mar. She broke her maiden Aug. 3, winning by 4 1/2 lengths, and the Daily Racing Form’s uncharacteristic rave said: “Inhaled foes.” A month later, Mandella wheeled Halfbridled back into stakes company and she won the Del Mar Debutante by five lengths, running seven furlongs in 1:22 1/5.

“She compares a lot to Phone Chatter,” Mandella said. “She’s the same sort of rangy filly, and she moves like a gazelle.”

On Breeders’ Cup day in 1993, Mandella won four stakes, two of them in the Breeders’ Cup and one with Phone Chatter, who had won the Oak Leaf a month before. Phone Chatter, who was voted best 2-year-old filly, was injured in the Breeders’ Cup, however, and never recaptured her juvenile form. She was retired in 1996, with only one victory in her last nine starts.

Mandella’s other Breeders’ Cup win a decade ago was a horse-of-the-year-clinching victory with Kotashaan in the Turf. Kotashaan was bred and owned by brothers, Alain and Gerard Wertheimer, who also bred and raced Halfbridled. Alain Wertheimer lives in France and Gerard lives in Switzerland. They also raced Dare And Go, who ended Cigar’s 16-race winning streak by winning the Pacific Classic at Del Mar in 1996.

Mandella is positioned for another big Breeders’ Cup day at Santa Anita. Two 2-year-old colts in his barn, Siphonizer and Minister Eric, ran 1-2, separated by half a length, in the Del Mar Futurity and are probables for the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile. Minister Eric will be trained up to the Breeders’ Cup, Mandella said, and Siphonizer might run Oct. 5 in the Norfolk Stakes.

In the Del Mar Debutante, Halfbridled ran four-fifths of a second faster than Siphonizer did in the Futurity.

“In only two starts, she’s turned into a real professional,” Mandella said. “She acts like she’s been doing this all her life.”

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Trainer Mel Stute, who holds the records for victories and stakes victories at the L.A. County Fair, will be honored today when he becomes the first inductee in the Fairplex Park Hall of Fame. “We feel that Mel also belongs in racing’s Hall of Fame [at Saratoga Springs, N.Y.], but short of that he’s the only logical choice to be the first horseman to go into our hall,” said George Bradvica, equine manager for the fair. Stute, 76, has been on the Hall of Fame ballot several times. He has won four races this season, pushing his total to 176.... Julie Krone, who rides Halfbridled, will make her Fairplex debut today, riding Excess Summer in the Pomona Derby.... Perfect Drift, who has beaten Mineshaft and Congaree, is the even-money morning-line favorite against five rivals in Sunday’s $750,000 Hawthorne Gold Cup in suburban Chicago.