Luster Is Off the Strub

The indignities heaped on the Strub Stakes in recent years may have race-goers considering what could be ahead for Santa Anita’s once-proud fixture. The echoes of Round Table, Affirmed, Spectacular Bid, Alysheba and Silver Charm, all winners of the Strub, are only sad reminders of what the stake once was.

Today’s 57th running of the Strub is worth $300,000, which represents another precipitous purse drop for a race that offered competing 4-year-olds a $500,000 pot for 16 consecutive years, starting in 1986. The purse was cut to $400,000 the last two years, and this year there has been another $100,000 bite, sending the Strub back to its 1985 level. The Strub used to share top billing on the Santa Anita menu with the Santa Anita Handicap and the Santa Anita Derby, but this season there are nine stakes worth $300,000 or more, including three races on Sunshine Millions day, which is part of the problem.

The $1-million Sunshine Millions Classic, run two weeks ago, drew an on-track crowd of more than 18,000, and together with some races at Gulfstream Park made for two hours of national television exposure. But seven of the horses that ran were 4-year-olds, many of them potential contenders for the Strub. The 1-2 finishers, Southern Image and Excess Summer, were 4-year-olds. Southern Image, if he were running today, would be the favorite, but the Strub comes too close to his last race.

Before Santa Anita -- with Dr. Charles Strub, track co-founder and the Strub Stakes’ original namesake, and his son, Bob Strub, no longer in the executive suite -- sliced the purse for the second time, the American Graded Stakes Committee dealt the Strub a severe blow in 1998, downgrading the race from a Grade I to a Grade II.

Early retirements -- because of injuries, stud opportunities or both -- impacted the cream of the 3-year-old crops in the 1990s, preventing many of the best horses from returning as 4-year-olds and running in the Strub.

After Alysheba won the Strub in 1988, striking an early blow for his eventual horse-of-the-year title, another Kentucky Derby winner didn’t run in the race until Silver Charm’s cakewalk against a weak field 10 years later. Editor’s Note, winner of the 1996 Belmont Stakes, ran last as the Strub favorite the following year.

Shortening the Strub distance from 1 1/4 miles to 1 1/8 miles in 1998 might have smacked of sacrilege. No longer would a Strub runner be able to aim at Spectacular Bid’s 1980 stakes-record time of 1:57 4/5, which is the North American dirt record for 1 1/4 miles. One of the reasons for the new distance was to increase field sizes, and make the Strub more of a lead-in for the 1 1/4-mile Santa Anita Handicap.

At 1 1/8 miles, however, the Strub has averaged only six-plus starters a year, which makes today’s 11-horse field all the more refreshing. In the last 10 years, there has been only one other Strub that has drawn as many as 11 horses. But with Southern Image on the sidelines, not one of today’s contenders is on the Daily Racing Form’s listing of the 10 best older males in the country. Buddy Gil and Toccet are Grade I winners, but Buddy Gil hasn’t won in 10 months, since last year’s Santa Anita Derby, and Toccet is one of eight since his win in the 2002 Hollywood Futurity.

Bettors may turn to During, the San Fernando winner who drew the unfavorable outside post; Buckland Manor, who is stepping up after three consecutive minor wins; and even Midas Eyes, who has never run farther than a mile. No matter who wins, the Graded Stakes Committee is not likely to be looking on with any intensity.

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Action This Day, making his first start since winning the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile in October, drew the outside post in a field of seven for Sunday’s $75,000 Sham Stakes. Others running in the 1 1/8-mile race, starting at the rail, are Borrego, True Contender, Gethsemani, Master David, Winner From Mars and Preachinatthebbar.

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Today’s San Vicente is a sprint that Silver Charm won en route to his Kentucky Derby victory in 1997. Trainer Doug O’Neill is running the undefeated Hosco, who won the San Miguel on Jan. 11 for his third victory.... Between the sixth and seventh races, Robby Albarado will be honored as the winner of the George Woolf Memorial Jockey Award. Albarado will ride Toccet in the Strub.