Torre fields a contender again

Even though the beginning of spring training is still about three months away, Joe Torre is hoping on Saturday to get his first important win since becoming manager of the Dodgers.

But baseball is not part of the equation. Night Chapter, a horse Torre owns with friend and trainer Bobby Frankel, is a contender in the $150,000 Hollywood Turf Express.

A Grade III at six furlongs, the Turf Express is one of six stakes that make up Hollywood Park’s annual Turf Festival. The Festival begins Friday and concludes Sunday with the two main events, the $500,000 Matriarch and the $500,000 Hollywood Derby.

Long a horse racing fan -- local press-box regulars remember him as a frequent visitor to Hollywood Park when broadcasting for the Angels nearly 20 years ago -- Torre became involved as an owner in recent years and has had success.

He was a member of a partnership that claimed Sis City for $50,000, saw her win important stakes in New York, Florida and Kentucky, and along the way sold controlling interest in the filly to Stonerside Stable for $2 million.

Torre also was a partner in Wild Desert, who won the $1-million Queens Plate in 2005 at Woodbine in Toronto as well as Sugar Punch, a New York-bred filly whose victories included the 2004 Iroquois Handicap at Belmont Park.

“I’ve probably been a fan too long,” said Torre, speaking by phone from his home in New York. “My brother Frank has always liked the track and I always found it exciting, but I guess I have to blame [longtime Yankees bench coach] Don Zimmer for reviving the fire when we started coaching together in 1996. Don and I went to the track quite a bit and to a lot of the simulcast facilities.

“I met some trainers, like Bill Mott, then I met [Rick] Dutrow. Zim knew his dad and Rick said I should own some horses, so I took him up on it.”

Although Dutrow is based in New York, the first horse Torre owned was in California. Along with Bernie Schiappa and Terry Lanni, he purchased Cellamare in 2003. Cellamare, a French-bred filly trained by Frank Monteleone, won the Carmel Handicap at Bay Meadows in September 2003, then was an also-ran in the Yellow Ribbon won by Tates Creek at Santa Anita.

Torre remains connected to Dutrow, saying he still has parts of “11 or 12” horses in New York.

Besides Night Chapter -- a consistent 6-year-old who has won three of his last four and was a much troubled fifth in his last start in the Morvich Handicap on Oct. 27 at Santa Anita -- Torre also has Mezuzah, an improving turf filly, with Frankel. A winner of her last two starts at Del Mar and Santa Anita, the 4-year-old daughter of Mazel Trick, who was bred in Kentucky by Frankel, is scheduled to run in the first race today at Hollywood Park.

“I met Bobby through Rick and we became fast friends,” Torre said. “Both of us are from Brooklyn, so there are a lot of similarities.

“I found it interesting that, how could a guy from Brooklyn like Bobby get the knowledge that he has about training horses.”

Because of his managerial career, Torre hasn’t been able to see many of his horses win in person. That will be the case again this weekend, when he’ll remain in New York.

He plans on taking daughter Andrea, 11, to today’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, then will attend two of her basketball games.

“I’ll watch the race on television,” he said.

But he added: “If I ever get to the point that I’ve had enough of [baseball] or people have had enough of me, I told Bobby I would just like to hang out with him for a while.”

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bob.mieszerski@latimes.com