Elements work against owners from California

By Larry Stewart

Oct. 28, 2007 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

OCEANPORT, N.J. -- Fire and rain weren’t kind to Marty and Pam Wygod -- on two coasts.

The fires in San Diego County caused them to evacuate their 110-acre estate in Rancho Santa Fe. Then, Saturday, it was the rain and a muddy track at Monmouth Park that caused one of their two Breeders’ Cup entries to be scratched.

After Market was pulled by trainer John Shirreffs from the Mile, a turf race, about four hours before post time and about six hours before the sun finally came out.

Shirreffs was concerned that the 4-year-old had previous bad experiences on off tracks.

After Market was injured on a sloppy track when he broke his maiden at Aqueduct in November 2005, and in August 2006 on a muddy track at Delaware Park he finished 38 lengths behind the winner.

Shirreffs galloped After Market on the dirt track Friday morning and late in the day said he was still hopeful. A hard rain early Saturday contributed to the decision to scratch the horse.

After Market won four in a row at Hollywood Park and Del Mar before a second-place finish in the Kelso Handicap at Belmont Park Sept. 29.

The Wygods’ other Breeders’ Cup entry, Idiot Proof, finished second to Midnight Lute in the Sprint, and a horse they bred, Octave, finished third in the Distaff, well behind Ginger Punch and Hystericalady.

Marty Wygod has had great success in several business ventures. Over a 10-year period, he build Medco Containment Services into the nation’s largest mail-order prescription drug company before selling it in 1993 for $6.5 billion.

Last week, not only did the Wygods have to leave their ranch, they also had to move their stable of riding horses to Del Mar and Fairplex Park in Pomona.

Midnight Lute gave trainer Bob Baffert his second Breeders’ Cup win of the day and afterward, Paul Weitman, one of the horse’s owners, was asked how the horse got its name.

Weitman said it came from Jerry Tarkanian, whose nickname for Arizona basketball Coach Lute Olson is “Midnight Lute.”

Weitman said when Tarkanian was coaching at Nevada Las Vegas, he and Olson were after the same Southern California recruit, and at the last minute the recruit decided to join Olson at Arizona.

That recruit was former NBA and Clippers player Tom Tolbert, a star at Lakewood High who is now a radio talk show host in the Bay Area.

There were three preliminary races run before the Breeders’ Cup card began Saturday, and Southern California horses won two of them. Garrett Gomez rode both and he made it three wins in a row aboard Indian Blessing in the first Breeders’ Cup race, the Juvenile Fillies.

Coca Belle, trained by John Sadler and owned by Jerry and Ann Moss, won the $200,000 Miss Woodford Stakes.

Cobalt Blue, owned by the Merv Griffin Ranch and trained by Doug O’Neill, won the $200,000 Select Stakes.

O’Neill also won Friday’s $1-million Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Sprint with Maryfield.

Dominic Chianese, best known as Uncle Junior of HBO’s “The Sopranos,” sang the national anthem before the races.

larry.stewart@latimes.com