A New Lion in Winter?

Same ownership, same trainer, same running style, same 3-year-old break-in race at Santa Anita. Patrick Biancone is just hoping for a slightly better long-term result from Spanish Chestnut than Lion Heart, whom he saddled for a second-place finish in last year’s Kentucky Derby.

Spanish Chestnut, trained by Biancone and owned by Michael Tabor and Derrick Smith, won Saturday’s $150,000 San Rafael, a stake in which Lion Heart ran second. A big difference is that Santa Anita scheduled this year’s San Rafael in mid-January compared to early March in 2004, which will give Biancone more wiggle room as he maps out a plan for the Derby.

Minutes after the San Rafael, Biancone seemed to have a firm schedule. He mentioned the Santa Catalina on March 5 and the Santa Anita Derby on April 9. The Kentucky Derby is on May 7.

Last year, when Lion Heart didn’t make his debut as a 3-year-old until March, Biancone shipped him to Keeneland in Lexington, Ky., for a second-place finish in the Blue Grass, three weeks before the Derby. Lion Heart, who didn’t win a race until July, won the Haskell Handicap in August and still earned more than $1 million.

Ridden by Gary Stevens, Spanish Chestnut usually runs on the lead, the perfect style for the glaring track bias at Santa Anita on Saturday. Bought last year at auction for $500,000, Spanish Chestnut had a 1 1/2 -length lead at the eighth pole and finished three-quarters of a length better than Iced Out, longest shot in the five-horse field.

Texcess finished third, a length behind Iced Out, and Kirkendahl, winner of his first two starts, was last as the 19-10 favorite. Biancone, citing a tiring surface, was not disturbed by the 1:36 3/5 time for the mile, slowest clocking for a San Rafael winner over a fast track since 1990.

Spanish Chestnut is taller than Lion Heart, who is not a big horse. “It’s not the size of the horse, but the size of the heart,” Biancone said. “This horse’s greenness cost him in the two races he lost. He’s a horse with speed and stamina, and the more you attack him, the more he destroys you. If you go with him, you’re dead, and if you don’t go, he’s difficult to catch.”

Not getting to the races until mid-October, Spanish Chestnut won two of four starts as a 2-year-old.

“He missed the break, then ran off on the first turn and relaxed,” Stevens said. “He’s a grinder with a lot of fight. This shows he’s the best around here for now.”

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Jockey Rene Douglas won the other two stakes on the card, the $198,000 San Fernando with Minister Eric and the $83,550 Hill Rise with Chattahoochee War. Pat Valenzuela, with Mass Media and Eastern Sand, finished second in both races, riding for the first time since July 1 and after he was suspended following a flap over a drug test. Valenzuela had three straight seconds.

For Minister Eric, the half-length win was his first in nine months and his third in 12 starts. Trained by Richard Mandella, who won his third graded stake of the meet, Minister Eric ran 1 1/16 miles in 1:42, paying $16.

“We took the blinkers off and that turned him around,” Mandella said. “You could see him relax. In [a seventh-place finish in the Malibu], he left there like a scalded cat.”

Action This Day, also trained by Mandella, continued to struggle, finishing eighth and losing for the sixth straight time since winning the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile in 2003.

“He was a disappointment,” Mandella said. “He pulled a [hip muscle] last year, and it seems good enough to us, but it must not be right.”

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Besides Spanish Chestnut, there were other 3-year-old stakes winners around the country -- Scrappy T in the Count Fleet at Aqueduct, Storm Surge in the Lecomte at the Fair Grounds in New Orleans and Buzzards Bay in the three-horse Golden Gate Derby -- but the well-bred Harlington also turned some heads at Gulfstream Park in Hallandale Beach, Fla.

Harlington, who cost his owner, Eugene Melnyk, $2.8 million as a yearling, won an allowance race by three lengths, running 1 1/8 miles over a sloppy track in 1:51. Trained by Todd Pletcher, Harlington won his only previous start, also in the slop, at Aqueduct on Nov. 28. The colt is a son of Unbridled, the 1990 Kentucky Derby winner, and Serena’s Song, who was elected into the Racing Hall of Fame in 2002.

“He’s still very green,” jockey John Velazquez said. “He acts like a big baby. The talent is there, but it’s a question of putting it all together.”

Storm Surge, who beat Spanish Chestnut in a race at Lone Star Park near Dallas on Breeders’ Cup day, won his fifth in eight starts, beating Smooth Bid by a neck and Kansas City Boy by another neck.

Buzzards Bay, trained by Jeff Mullins and ridden by Mark Guidry, was a Santa Anita shipper who beat Sharp Writer by a nose.