Horse Racing / Bill Christine : $2.9-Million Louisiana Slew Impressive Winner

DEL MAR —  J.E. Jumonville Jr. questioned the time that his 2-year-old colt, Louisiana Slew, needed to win the first race of his career Sunday at Del Mar. Louisiana Slew ran six furlongs in 1:11 1/5. The track record is 1:07 3/5.

When a man pays $2.9 million for a horse--as Jumonville did last year for Louisiana Slew at a Keeneland auction--maybe he has a right to expect not just wins, but also world records.

“Forget about the time,” trainer Wayne Lukas told Jumonville. “This isn’t the same as a qualifying heat for a quarter-horse stake. When a horse wins as professionally as this one did in the first race of his life, you know you’ve got something. He didn’t turn a hair doing it.”

Jumonville, a state senator from Louisiana, is new to the thoroughbred game.

One of his quarter horses, the mare Dashingly, earned a near record $1.7 million in her career and two others, Justanold Love and Indigo Illusion, are also high on the list of career money makers.

Jumonville paid about $1 million for Dashingly, but he outdid himself in going to $2.9 million for Louisiana Slew. Twenty other thoroughbred yearlings, including this year’s Nijinsky II colt that cost a record $13.1 million, have been sold for more than $2.9 million, but none was bought by an American. Jumonville and some of Lukas’ other deep-pocketed clients--Gene Klein, Bob French and Melvin Hatley--play major parts in the trainer’s campaign, against Europeans and Arabs, to keep well bred horses in the United States.

The win by Louisiana Slew was good for Jumonville’s morale, because he came up empty with two other yearlings that he bought at Keeneland. A $310,000 Blushing Groom filly turned up with a bone chip in her leg and a $250,000 Spectacular Bid filly ran into a fence, broke her knee and had to be destroyed.

“I was fortunate in both cases,” Jumonville said. “Lee Eaton, who had consigned the Blushing Groom filly, was good enough to take her back because of the injury. And the Spectacular Bid filly was insured.”

When Louisiana Slew walked onto the track before Sunday’s race, Kenny Church, the former jockey, said: “Did somebody misplace that horse’s foal papers? He sure don’t look like no 2-year-old.”

Lukas said he delayed getting Louisiana Slew to the races because the colt was heavy and “we wanted to strip away some of that weight before we started him. He’s more than 15 hands (60 inches) now and could mature into more than 16 hands.”

Louisiana Slew is listed as “bay or brown,” but Lukas said that the Jockey Club in New York, which designates horses’ colors, may reclassify him as black. Black horses are rare in racing. In the 111 runnings of the Kentucky Derby, only four blacks have won, the last being Flying Ebony in 1925.

Black or brown, Jumonville’s big investment has the look of a colt who will keep his owner out of the red.

There are no easy explanations for the wave of jockey injuries at Del Mar this season. Bill Shoemaker, Terry Lipham, Eric Saint-Martin and Darrel McHargue have been involved in serious spills, and Chris McCarron, Rafael Meza and Martin Pedroza have survived dangerous falls.

“It used to be that a lot of inexperienced Mexican riders would ride this meet and some of them would be reckless and get you into trouble,” said Lipham, whose career has been threatened by multiple injuries. “But this summer, there aren’t too many Mexican riders here.”

Trainer Ross Fenstermaker doesn’t have the answer. “The bad spills haven’t happened in one particular area,” Fenstermaker said. “They’ve been everywhere--out of the gate, on the turns, in the straightaways. So you can’t put a finger on one place as a trouble spot.”

Mr Dalrae, who became the 21st pacer to earn $1 million with a win last weekend at Sportsman’s Park, will try for the 11th time to beat On the Road Again when they race Saturday in the $75,000 R. Bruce Cornell Memorial at Freehold Raceway in New Jersey.

Mr Dalrae, bred and owned by Bill Smith, a Pico Rivera restaurateur has been second four times in the 10 previous meetings with On the Road Again this year.

Smith believes that racing inside of On the Road Again will give Mr Dalrae a better chance, and his 6-year-old will be in that position Saturday, starting from the No. 3 hole, while On the Road Again will have the outside post in the seven-horse field.

On the Road Again was upset on a sloppy track at Mohawk Raceway near Toronto last weekend, finishing in a dead heat for second, a neck behind the victorious Advance Attack.

Racing Notes

The Los Angeles County Fair will unveil its lengthened five-furlong track when the 18-day season at Pomona opens next Thursday. The meeting will run through Sept. 29, with $2.6 million being offered in purses, including $100,000 for the Pomona Invitational Handicap on closing day. . . . Greinton, second in the Sunset Handicap and the Budweiser-Arlington Million in his last two starts, is in New York, being prepared to run in the Marlboro Cup at Belmont Park Sept. 14. If the weights don’t suit trainer Charlie Whittingham, the Turf Classic is a possibility Sept. 21, as is Belmont’s Jockey Club Gold Cup Oct. 5. Greinton needs to win in New York to get back into the horse-of-the-year picture. Unless supplemented, he’s ineligible to run in the Breeders’ Cup races at Aqueduct on Nov. 2. “He should have won both of those last two races,” Whittingham said. “He didn’t get good trips either time.” . . . Script Ohio, once a promising 3-year-old, hasn’t sufficiently recovered from knee surgery and is being retired. . . . Drumalis, who underwent intestinal surgery after running 11th in the Million, has recovered so quickly that he might resume training out of trainer Darrell Vienna’s barn at Santa Anita in a few weeks.