Minister Eric Is in the Mix

It was fashionable to downgrade last year’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, because many of the top 2-year-olds stayed away, but the race might be gaining ground in the eyes of Kentucky Derby forecasters.

Action This Day, winner of the Juvenile, ran a creditable fourth in his 3-year-old debut, and his stablemate, Minister Eric, might get a chance to show something Saturday at Santa Anita.

Minister Eric, who has spent much of his young career being beaten by other colts in trainer Richard Mandella’s barn, was on a two-horse also-eligible list when 14 horses were entered for the $100,000 Baldwin Stakes. Only 12 can run, but wet conditions could produce scratches, and there’s even an outside chance that the Baldwin might be switched from 6 1/2 furlongs on grass to a dirt race for the third time in the last five years. Roi Charmant is the first also-eligible who might draw in, followed by Minister Eric.

Mandella would prefer a main-track race, to better prepare Minister Eric for more Derby preliminaries.

If he runs, the Baldwin will be Minister Eric’s sixth start and his first since Oct. 25, when Action This Day beat him by more than two lengths in the Breeders’ Cup at Santa Anita.

In what has been a frustrating winter for Mandella, Minister Eric came out of the Breeders’ Cup with sore shins, then required ankle and knee surgery for bone chips. Action This Day also wasn’t ready to run as early as Mandella had hoped, and undefeated Halfbridled, who is eligible for the Derby but probably will run against other fillies in the Kentucky Oaks at Churchill Downs the day before, on April 30, hasn’t run this season at Santa Anita.

Then this week, Mandella learned that Julie Krone, who had ridden Halfbridled for all four of her wins, wouldn’t be available for the Santa Anita Oaks on March 13. Krone has ridden only three races since her spill at Hollywood Park on Dec. 12.

Action This Day’s next race is expected to be the San Felipe on March 14.

The Baldwin is hardly a traditional spot for horses being groomed for the Derby, but Buddy Gil won the grass race last year, won the Santa Anita Derby six weeks later, then finished sixth in the Kentucky Derby.

Minister Eric won a grass sprint last year at Hollywood Park in his first start, then stayed on dirt for the rest of his juvenile campaign. He broke his maiden at Del Mar, on the third try, before running second in the Del Mar Futurity. Siphonizer, another Mandella trainee, won the Del Mar Futurity and also beat Minister Eric in a maiden race at Del Mar.

Among the others in the Baldwin is Saint Afleet, who was last in the Hollywood Futurity in December but in his first start this year won the six-furlong Sunshine Millions Dash on dirt at Santa Anita on Jan. 24.

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Silver Wagon, third in the Fountain of Youth Stakes at Gulfstream Park, is scheduled to undergo surgery on both knees and is out for the year. The colt won the Hopeful at Saratoga in August but was winless in three starts in Florida since then.

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Storm Flag Flying, champion 2-year-old filly in 2002 but unraced for more than eight months, was a 3 3/4-length winner of an allowance race at Gulfstream. The win, Storm Flag Flying’s fifth in seven starts, sent her over the $1-million mark in purses.

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Bernie Thurman has moved up to general manager of Bay Meadows, becoming the first woman to run a racetrack in Northern California. Thurman, 50, worked as an assistant to Jack Liebau, who recently resigned from Bay Meadows and Magna Entertainment’s other California tracks, Santa Anita and Golden Gate Fields.

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Jerry Moss, co-founder with Herb Alpert of A&M; Records and a horse owner for more than 30 years, has been appointed to the California Horse Racing Board. Moss replaces Alan Landsburg on the seven-member board. Landsburg’s term expired in January.