Horse Racing / Bill Christine : It’s Quiet Winter for 3-Year-Olds

This has been one of the quietest winters in some time for the 3-year-old division, the crop that will make a run at the Kentucky Derby and the other Triple Crown races during a five-week grind starting on the traditional first Saturday in May at Churchill Downs.

Capote, last year’s champion 2-year-old colt, has been in light training and probably will make only three starts before the Derby.

The horses that finished behind Capote in the Eclipse Awards voting--Gulch, Bet Twice, Polish Navy and Temperate Sil--have yet to surface.

Trainers not fond of subjecting their young 3-year-olds to the rigors of the Triple Crown have an added reason to be more cautious this year. The Travers Stakes at Saratoga in August--sometimes identified as the “midsummer Derby”--has more than tripled in value and will be run as a $1-million race for the first time. It’s a race worth waiting for if a trainer has a horse he thinks isn’t ready for the demands of the Triple Crown.

In Las Vegas, one winter-book odds maker naturally has Capote listed as the favorite for the Derby, but the colt’s price is a generous 7-1. Temperate Sil, the winner of the Hollywood Futurity, is 12-1 and Gulch, who was undefeated in New York before Capote beat him twice at Santa Anita at the end of last year, is 15-1.

Though the dominant 2-year-old with his two wins over Gulch, including a victory in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, Capote still ran only four races last year and Brave Raj, the 2-year-old filly, ran a faster 1 1/l6 miles on Breeders’ Cup day than the son of Seattle Slew did.

The $275,000 El Camino Real Derby, a race that gave the Snow Chief bandwagon an initial push when he soundly defeated Badger Land in last year’s running, will be run Sunday at Bay Meadows.

The field of 8 to 10 starters will consist of horses trying to establish reputations. The winner will be considerably richer, but because of the opposition, the victory still won’t do much for the horse’s resume.

Masterful Advocate is the heavy favorite, after surviving a rough trip for third place, just half a length behind Temperate Sil, in the Hollywood Futurity and then winning the Los Feliz Stakes at Santa Anita Jan. 14.

Other starters are expected to include Fast Delivery, winner of the California Breeders’ Champion Stakes at Santa Anita, and Red and Blue, who was second, 4 1/2 lengths back, to Masterful Advocate in the Los Feliz.

Red and Blue, who has been fourth, first and second since trainer Craig Lewis claimed him for $40,000 out of a winning maiden race at Hollywood Park in November, will be ridden by Pat Valenzuela, even though the jockey’s current five-day suspension will not end until Monday. In California, suspended jockeys are still allowed to ride in certain stakes that are designated by the track before the season opens, and the El Camino falls into that category at Bay Meadows.

Officials at Bay Meadows are unhappy that the El Camino Real Derby, a Grade III race, wasn’t upgraded this year. A national committee representing the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Assn. rates races according to several criteria each year and this year it gave Grade I, II or III status to 409 races.

Among the criteria is the quality of recent fields. Bay Meadows points out that the last three winners of the Preakness--Gate Dancer, Tank’s Prospect and Snow Chief--were either first or second in the El Camino. In 1983, Croeso, after finishing second in the Bay Meadows race, went on to win the Florida Derby, which is a Grade I.

Del Mar had also hoped that its Eddie Read Handicap, a Grade II grass race, would be upgraded, but it didn’t happen. The Read has been a prep for the Budweiser-Arlington Million in recent years and some of the runners at Del Mar have included The Bart, Super Moment, Silveyville, Desert Wine, Tsunami Slew, Al Mamoon, Both Ends Burning and Zoffany.

The grading committee can be difficult to deal with, however. For years, Pimlico has campaigned to have its Black-Eyed Susan, which is run for 3-year-old fillies the day before the Preakness, be reclassified as a Grade I.

One year, in desperation, a Pimlico official wrote the committee, pointing out that the Black-Eyed Susan was certainly better than a Grade I race at Delaware Park. The committee not only left the Black-Eyed Susan as a Grade II, it also lowered the Delaware Park race to a Grade II as well.

The three New York tracks--Belmont Park, Aqueduct and Saratoga--will be running 116 graded races this year. The Southern California circuit--Santa Anita, Hollywood Park and Del Mar--has 107 listed. Hollywood has 48 graded races, including the seven Breeders’ Cup stakes in November, and Santa Anita has 45.

One of Hollywood Park’s races, the Milady Handicap, has been rated a Grade I for the first time.

Veterinarian Jay Rose, who runs a clinic in Bonsall, Calif., reports that the thoroughbred Melair and the quarter horse Prissy Fein are both recovering from recent major surgery.

The undefeated Melair, who finished second to Tiffany Lass in voting for the nation’s best 3-year-old filly, had 80% of her colon removed, and 27 feet of intestine was taken out of Prissy Fein, a 5-year-old who is a multiple stakes winner.

“Melair is doing very well, but it would be a tad premature to be totally comfortable about her recovering,” Rose said. “She is in that in-between zone and it’s going to be at least another week before we can be sure about her.

“Prissy Fein probably will be able to leave here in another 10 days. Her owners have hopes of racing her some more.”

Horse Racing Notes Del Miller, who has driven more than 2,300 winners in harness racing and at 73 still occasionally gets into the sulky, was a spectator at Santa Anita while in Los Angeles for the Super Bowl. Miller said that as a kid, before he started driving, he was a jockey for four races at a bush track and won three of them. . . . Bill Smith, the Pico Rivera restaurateur who has raced two champions--Sir Dalrae and Mr Dalrae--has a relative to that pair, named Tartare, being groomed to compete in the Adios for 3-year-old pacers at the Meadows near Pittsburgh this summer. Smith also has a 3-year-old trotter in his barn named Pepper Steak. . . . Sandy Hawley, recovered from an operation for a cancerous growth on his back, will resume riding at Santa Anita Sunday, then will take off for Arkansas and the season at Oaklawn Park.

Cash Rate, the world-champion quarter horse in 1985 and a contender for 1986 honors, will probably get some votes for a sad reason--the 6-year-old gelding died Jan. 11 of complications following knee surgery. The winner will be announced Feb. 17. . . . Seldom Seen Sue, winner of the El Encino Stakes last Saturday at Santa Anita, has won four of her last five starts by a combined margin of 26 1/2 lengths. . . . Small fields are likely for Saturday’s Santa Ynez and Sunday’s San Pascual at Santa Anita. Undefeated Very Subtle is scheduled to run in the Santa Ynez and Nostalgia’s Star and Thrill Show are candidates for the San Pascual, which will be run for the 50th time. . . . Meadowlake, a 4-year-old who is 3 for 3 lifetime, including a nine-length win in the 1985 Arlington-Washington Futurity, is back in training at Hialeah after a series of foot and leg problems.