Lava Man will chase a ghost in the Gold Cup

Saturday afternoon at Hollywood Park, Lava Man will have at least half a dozen quality horses to beat for his third straight Hollywood Gold Cup.

Also, one ghost.

The striking black horse from Doug O’Neill’s barn will be chasing a striking black horse from history.

When Native Diver made his celebrated run in the 1960s, racing was a main player on the Southern California sports scene. Crowds of 50,000 or more showed up to wager, root and adore. When he won his third straight Hollywood Gold Cup in 1967, he got the Lakers-size headlines of today.

Lava Man is 40 years too late to stir the masses the way Native Diver did. Video games, skateboards and Kobe are the straws now. But when jockey Corey Nakatani climbs aboard Saturday, remaining fans will know that something special may be about to happen in this prestigious $750,000 event.

In a race that has been won over the years by the likes of Seabiscuit, Citation, Swaps, Affirmed and Cigar, only Native Diver and Lava Man have won it twice. And only those two have done so in succession. But only Native Diver has made a successful three-peat.

Lava Man has the proper qualifications to race in the footsteps of this deity. He has winnings of $4,739,706 and has not only won two Gold Cups, but also two Santa Anita Handicaps and one Pacific Classic, the jewel of Del Mar’s annual summer seaside meeting.

Born in California six years ago, Lava Man made an inauspicious 2-year-old start in a $12,500 claiming race at the Stockton Fairgrounds -- akin to performing poorly in the lowest rungs of the minor leagues. Twelve races into his career, he had three wins.

Nevertheless, Steve Kenly of STD Farms saw something in the horse and started encouraging his trainer, O’Neill, to make a claim. O’Neill got Lava Man for $50,000 on July 28, 2004, after a race in Del Mar.

That now ranks as the best claim in history. Lava Man has achieved all but $98,000 of his winnings after the claim.

Still, O’Neill was neither thrilled nor certain. Lava Man was open to purchase as recently as May 14, 2005, when he ran in a $100,000 claiming stakes. But nobody took him, he won, and since then has done so 11 more times in 18 races.

Racing reveres its Kentucky Derby winners, and celebrates the champions of its Preakness and Belmont. But it lives off the older horses, the gelded warriors, the John Henrys, Kelsos, Foregos and Native Divers who stay around long enough to gather a fan base.

Lava Man is there.

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It is a Thursday, early in the morning, already bright and sunny at the barns at Hollywood Park. Lava Man, in a padded stall that attests to why he may have been gelded in the first place, calmly awaits his groom and his morning romp.

Noa Garcia hopes to be preparing for his fourth Gold Cup title. He groomed Sky Jack for O’Neill in 2002, and then did the same for Lava Man in ’05 and ’06. O’Neill and Garcia laugh about Garcia’s bad timing. A few years before Sky Jack, the winning groom used to get a pickup truck.

Garcia wraps each ankle of the famous horse with white gauze material. “They can nick themselves with a bad step, and that protects against the little cuts,” O’Neill says.

A red shadow roll over his nose contrasting nicely with the white ankle bandages, the great black horse looks almost regal.

As Lava Man is warmed up slowly by a walker, O’Neill turns to longtime exercise rider Tony Romero and says, “OK, one and one today” -- one breezed lap and then one more vigorous gallop.

Romero replies, “Nope, two and one.”

O’Neill nods, shrugs and jokes about who is the real trainer of this horse. Then he stops Lava Man long enough to show off the expert shoeing job by Jimmy Jimenez -- glue, not nails -- that he says has made the horse more comfortable.

“Talking about team stuff is a cliche,” O’Neill says, “but it is what works here.”

From the backstretch observation deck, the track looks as busy as the 405 Freeway. But Lava Man is never hard to spot with that signature red shadow roll and Romero’s bright green safety riding vest reflecting the morning sun.

Lava Man breezes near the rail. Other horses, in full workout, pull away from him, but not quickly or easily.

“We seldom put him through a hard, formal workout,” O’Neill says. “He just does this, almost every day. Most other horses, going this often at that speed, would just shrivel up.”

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On the other side of the main grandstand, in the center of the paddock, is a bridge, murals on its side, flowers planted beneath, and a large cup on top. It is the memorial to the ghost Lava Man will chase Saturday.

Buried beneath is Native Diver, who died only months after his third Gold Cup win in 1967 and only days after winning the Del Mar Handicap on Labor Day, his intestine twisted so badly there that he could not be saved.

One of the murals shows the ’67 finish, with Native Diver crossing the finish line just behind a riderless horse. That horse, O’Hare, had thrown his rider at the starting gate, kept right on going and got across ahead of Native Diver in a moment that was so well-documented and photographed that it further enhanced the legend.

Jerry Lambert rode Native Diver that day, as he did on most of the horse’s major wins. He is 67 now, an assistant trainer at a farm in Santa Ynez.

“I did a double-take,” Lambert says. “I thought it was Pretense coming. He was a nice horse and had been beating us some.”

In the stands that day were owners Mr. and Mrs. L.K. Shapiro, who had bred Native Diver on their Canoga Park farm.

Louis Karl Shapiro was a friendly, outgoing man. His wife, Ida, was quieter, and at 4 feet 9 strained to see the famous finish. Her husband told her they had won again. Ida said, “Oh. No. That can’t be. That other horse came across first.”

For years, on Gold Cup day, somebody would put a wreath of gold flowers on the memorial.

“It stopped a few years ago,” says Richard Shapiro, one of Louis and Ida’s grandchildren. “It was so nice, but we never knew who was doing that.”

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Richard Shapiro visited O’Neill last week, asking which was Lava Man’s stall so he could send in Tonya Harding with a tire iron. O’Neill got the joke and told him they moved Lava Man around a lot.

Shapiro is the commissioner of the California Horse Racing Board, and he would embrace a victory by Lava Man because of the boost it would give to racing. But he is also nostalgic about Native Diver.

“That horse played a critical role for my family,” he says. “My dad [Marvin Shapiro] had one sister, and she died at age 39 of cancer. My grandparents were distraught, and Native Diver became a savior.

“I remember so many of his races, standing in that winner’s circle, so proud. We were superstitious. My parents dressed my brother Tom and me in plaid jackets for the Gold Cup days. You can see me in the pictures, after the ’65 race, and then the ’66 race, in the same jacket. I didn’t go in ‘67, but my brother was there and the sleeves on the plaid jacket were up to his elbows by then.”

Shapiro says, to this day, when he is introduced to somebody new, the first question often asked is whether he is one of the Native Diver Shapiros.

“Forty years later,” he says, “and they still identify with that.”

*

Back on the observation deck, Hall of Fame trainer Ron McAnally watches Lava Man and dozens of other horses work.

McAnally will be 75 on July 11, and he once had his own Lava Man -- the great gelding John Henry, who contributed a large portion of the nearly $120 million in winnings that McAnally has had in the sport.

John Henry never won a Hollywood Gold Cup -- McNally won with Pay Tribute in 1976 -- but he won plenty of other big races.

McAnally is wishing the best for Lava Man. “It is good for racing if he keeps going,” he says.

He says he has a trip planned soon to visit John Henry, who McAnally says “will probably recognize me because I’ll have a treat.”

Shapiro says he also visited John Henry not long ago at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington.

“It’s chilling,” he says, “and right across from his stall is Cigar.”

Native Diver never made it to a racing rest home. He resides in the paddock at Hollywood Park, where it is easier to keep an eye on Lava Man.

It is his favorite haunt.

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Bill Dwyre can be reached at bill.dwyre@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Dwyre, go to latimes.com/dwyre.

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HOLLYWOOD GOLD CUP

* When: Saturday.

* Where: Hollywood Park.

* Post: Race 10, 4:40 p.m.

* TV: 4 p.m., ESPN2.