This One Is Special to Canani

Trainer Julio Canani has won in the neighborhood of 20 Grade I races during a career that has spanned more than 35 years.

Three of those significant victories have come in the $300,000 Shoemaker Breeders’ Cup Mile, which will be run Monday at Hollywood Park. The victories -- with Silic twice and Ladies Din -- have been a little more special for the Peruvian-born Canani.

In the days when Canani’s barn was smaller and included almost entirely claiming horses, Shoemaker rode -- often with success -- for the trainer. When the legendary jockey retired on Feb. 3, 1990, his final ride was on the Canani-trained Patchy Groundfog, who finished fourth that afternoon at Santa Anita in a race won by Exemplary Leader.

Canani will try for another win in the Grade I stakes race that bears Shoemaker’s name when he sends out Charmo against six others.

“Winning this race has been special,” Canani said. “It was an honor that Shoe rode his last race for me.”

Owned by television writer-producer David Milch, Charmo, a 5-year-old French-bred son of Charnwood Forest, has a chance of giving Canani his fourth win in the Shoemaker since 1999.

A maiden after 16 starts in France, Charmo was purchased on the recommendation of bloodstock agent Hubert Guy and has blossomed in the U.S.

“Charmo never won in France, but he was running with very good horses,” Canani said. “Hubert found him. He sent me tapes of his races and I liked what I saw, and his X-rays were good, so we bought him.

“He hasn’t done anything wrong yet. I made one mistake with this horse. I never should have run him back in 17 days after he won his first start here.”

He has won four of six since Oct. 14 and became a graded stakes winner last month at Golden Gate Fields. Ridden for the first time by Martin Pedroza, who has the mount again on Monday, Charmo circled the field to win the San Francisco Breeders’ Cup Mile, a Grade II, on April 29.

This came nearly two months after he had finished sixth in the Kilroe Mile, a Grade I, at Santa Anita. However, he was beaten by only one length in a race in which the whole field came together at the wire.

After beating maidens by three lengths going about 6 1/2 furlongs on the Santa Anita turf course, Charmo returned on Nov. 3 to finish third at 4-5 at the same distance.

Unquestionably most effective at one mile, Charmo could be another Breeders’ Cup Mile contender for Milch and Canani. He is not eligible for the Breeders’ Cup, so he would have to be supplemented to the race this year at Churchill Downs.

But Milch has supplemented to the Mile before with Val Royal in 2001, when that French-bred responded with a 1 3/4 -length win at Belmont Park. It was the second Breeders’ Cup Mile victory for Canani, who had scored two years earlier with Silic.

Win or lose, Charmo probably will get some time off after Monday. Canani said he probably would be pointed to the Atto Mile at Woodbine in September, then possibly the Breeders’ Cup.

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The Shoemaker Mile is not the only Grade I on the Monday card in which Canani will have a representative. He is also scheduled to run Shining Energy in the $300,000 Gamely Breeders’ Cup Handicap at 1 1/8 miles on turf.

Owned by Terry Lanni and Bernie Schiappa, with whom Canani scored his three Shoemaker wins, Shining Energy will be looking for her sixth win in 11 starts in this country.

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At its monthly meeting Thursday at Los Alamitos, the California Horse Racing Board gave final approval to a regulatory amendment requiring the installation of synthetic surfaces at the major thoroughbred tracks in the state by the end of 2007.

The new rule states that by Jan. 1, 2008, no association that operates four weeks of continuous thoroughbred racing in a calendar year will be licensed unless the track has installed a “polymer synthetic type surface.”

The action comes on the heels of various studies on the merits of synthetic surfaces and presentations to California’s horse racing industry by representatives from four manufacturers of polymer-based surfaces. Synthetic surfaces are considered safer for horses and jockeys than traditional dirt surfaces and have resulted in fewer injuries at Turfway Park in Florence, Ky., where Polytrack has been used for racing and training for several months.