OAK TREE : Today a Day for California Breeders

Ray Bell does not say that if he had been able to buy Nasrullah 40 years ago, California’s horse breeding would be where Kentucky’s is now. But Bell does say that the wide gap between California and Kentucky, the citadel of international breeding, might be a lot narrower.

It is unfair comparing Kentucky breeding to any state’s, because this is an industry in which Kentucky is the big leagues--and then there is everyplace else.

With their offspring, Florida, Maryland, Virginia and California make intermittent overtures in major races, and Lady’s Secret even gave Oklahoma some rare breeding recognition when she was voted horse of the year in 1986. But these incursions, into what Kentuckians consider to be their private preserve, are rare. They expect to win most of the races most of the time, and last Saturday, when only two of the seven Breeders’ Cup winners were Kentucky-breds, there was chagrin, not fanfare, in the bluegrass.

Breeders in any other state, including California, would have done handstands.

“We had some good mares out here, and I think that if we could have gotten Nasrullah at the time, he could have made a difference,” Bell said Friday, on the eve of today’s $1-million California Cup at Santa Anita’s Oak Tree meeting. The California Cup is the state breeding industry’s seven-race bid for attention.

At 91, Bell, who has been a Californian about two-thirds of his life, will give the state’s breeders some free advice. “They’ve made strides, but they could do more,” he said. “California breeds an awful lot of horses, and there are a lot of bad horses. We should be sending emissaries all over the world, to countries wherever they race horses, in search of customers.

“There are a lot of people out there who will buy horses, just if they can run a little. California can’t compete with Kentucky, but (this state’s) breeders deserve better. People like Wayne Lukas, even though they’re based in California, go back to Kentucky to get their horses. By and large, we’re not going to get California people to spend a lot on horses here, but buyers from the outside would help. The trick is to get them to come.”

In 1949, Bell was an emissary himself, an international bloodstock agent shopping for horses to import from Europe. On the market was the leading English sire, Nasrullah, whom Joe McGrath had bought for $76,000.

McGrath, a former classmate of Bell’s and the operator of the Irish Sweepstakes, told the Californian that the price tag on Nasrullah was $250,000. “I couldn’t get to the car fast enough,” Bell said, “to get the word to Louis B. Mayer.”

The movie mogul’s attorney, Neil McCarthy, didn’t want to close the deal quickly. “I told McCarthy to send the check and then we’d talk, but that didn’t happen,” Bell said.

Bell said McCarthy called Bull Hancock, the owner of Claiborne Farm in Paris, Ky., to see if a breeding syndicate could be put together.

“That’s when the deal went out of my hands,” Bell said.

Nasrullah’s reputation was well-known. In California, Rex Ellsworth coveted the stallion. But Hancock didn’t seem to know who Nasrullah was. “Who is he?” Hancock said. “I don’t pay any attention to foreign studs.”

In the next couple of weeks, Hancock would educate himself. He and some partners went to Ireland to examine Nasrullah. Indirectly, they were responsible for Nasrullah’s price jumping to $372,000.

Nashua came from Nasrullah’s first American crop. Ruffian, Seattle Slew, Secretariat and Spectacular Bid are all part of the Nasrullah line. Standing at Claiborne until his death at 19 in 1959, Nasrullah was the country’s leading sire five times and helped build Hancock’s farm into an industry giant.

“Nasrullah could have made California,” Bell said.

In today’s $300,000 California Cup Classic, there are three horses sired by Flying Paster, the leading California stallion who stands at Cardiff Stud in Creston.

Flying Paster is a son of Gummo, who was a son of Fleet Nasrullah, who was a son of Nasrullah. For Ray Bell, Flying Paster is a reminder of the big horse from Ireland that got away.

Horse Racing Notes

A field of 13, with Kostroma doubtful because of a fluke injury, has been entered for Sunday’s $400,000 Yellow Ribbon Stakes at Santa Anita. A victory by Petite Ile or Reluctant Guest might earn an Eclipse Award as the country’s best female on grass. . . . Here’s the lineup, in post-position order: Foresta, Royal Touch, Coolawin, Plenty of Grace, Double Wedge, Petite Ile, Native Twine, Baldomero, Little Brianne, Gaelic Bird, Freya Stark, Reluctant Guest and Kostroma.

An Irish-bred filly, Kostroma stepped on a nail and pulled a shoe while getting off a van. . . . Gaelic Bird, who will be saddled by the French trainer, Francois Doumen, goes to Richard Mandella’s barn after the race. . . . Mandella trains Reluctant Guest.