Horse Racing / Bill Christine : Tasso, Ogygian Top Experimental

Tasso, the Eclipse Award winner, and Ogygian were rated the best 2-year-old colts in the country and I’m Splendid was ranked the best 2-year-old filly, but only after a divided opinion among the three racing secretaries who compiled the 1985 Experimental Free Handicap.

The Experimental has been an annual exercise in assessing 2-year-olds since 1933 and this time the horses were rated by Lou Eilken, who recently retired from Santa Anita, Tommy Trotter of Gulfstream Park and Hollywood Park, and Lenny Hale from the New York tracks.

At the suggestion of Eilken, 2-year-olds were ranked in separate colt and filly divisions for the first time, with high weights, as usual, given to the best horses. The Experimental only evaluates horses based on their 2-year-old performances. It’s not intended to project what they might do as 3-year-olds.

Tasso and Ogygian were given 126 pounds each in the Experimental, although Ogygian finished third in the Eclipse voting, behind Tasso and Storm Cat. Storm Cat was listed third, at 124 pounds, in the Experimental, followed by Snow Chief at 123 and three horses at 122--Meadowlake, Pillaster and Danzig Connection. After that, there was a drop to 120 for Hilco Scamper and Scat Dancer, and to 119 pounds for Mogambo.

Among the fillies, I’m Splendid was listed at 123 pounds, a pound more than Twilight Ridge, who won the Breeders’ Cup race that I’m Splendid skipped. I’m Splendid finished the year by winning the Hollywood Starlet as Twilight Ridge finished third.

Family Style, second to Twilight Ridge in the Breeders’ Cup but winner of the Eclipse Award, was weighted at 121 pounds, as were I’m Sweets and Lazer Show. I’m Splendid was second and Twilight Ridge finished third in the Eclipse voting, which is done by about 250 racing secretaries, turf writers and Daily Racing Form representatives.

In the Experimental, Eilken disagreed with Hale and Trotter on which horses should top the colt and filly lists. Eilken, who is continuing in his position as director of racing at Canterbury Downs, had Tasso on top, a pound better than Ogygian, and he rated Twilight Ridge ahead of I’m Splendid.

“There was no distinct standout,” Eilken said. “Lenny (Hale) was especially high on Ogygian (who won his only three races by 20 1/2 lengths) and actually had him at 127 pounds. I had Tasso at 126 and Ogygian at 125. On the filly side, both Lenny and Tommy (Trotter) liked I’m Splendid over Twilight Ridge.”

Of the first three colts, only Tasso is still aiming for the Triple Crown races. Ogygian injured himself while resting at a farm, and Storm Cat has undergone arthroscopic surgery for bone chips in a knee.

At least one racing official is critical of the way New York racing authorities acted in banning French trainer Alain de Royer-Dupre for life in the Lashkari incident.

Lashkari, the Aga Khan-owned horse who won a Breeders’ Cup race in 1984 at Hollywood Park, finished fourth in the Breeders’ Cup Turf Stakes at Aqueduct last November, then was disqualified from winning the $140,000 in purse money because of an illegal stimulant in his system.

The New York ruling, because of reciprocity among the states, will prohibit Royer-Dupre from competing at American tracks, but will not affect his standing in Europe.

“New York officials said that Royer-Dupre didn’t request a hearing,” said a member of the California Horse Racing Board, preferring that his name not be used.

“Request a hearing? When you’re going to act as severely as they did with this trainer, you give him a hearing, you don’t wait for him to request one.”

Royer-Dupre is expected to appeal the New York ruling. One racing source said that France would never honor a U.S. suspension against a trainer of the Aga Khan because of the Aga’s influence in France.

Several phone calls to the Aga’s attorney in New York were not returned.

Longshot Dept.: New York horseplayers take pride in their handicapping skills, but even the most astute of them couldn’t have made a case for Bankbuster, who won a race at Aqueduct last week and paid $172 to win.

Bankbuster, a 3-year-old gelding, had finished no higher than sixth in his six previous starts, losing those races by a combined 108 3/4 lengths.

Bankbuster is trained by the same Sturges (Duke) Ducoing who won with a 66-1 shot last summer at Saratoga, setting up a track-record exacta payoff of $3,488 for $2.

Chuck Tanner, then the manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates, is a friend of Ducoing and was irked that the trainer hadn’t alerted him to the longshot possibility at Saratoga.

A couple of years ago, Ducoing told some friends at a Miami Beach bar that he was starting a longshot with a good chance at Hialeah, and they still didn’t cash the bet. The money was sent to the track and the horse won, but nobody got a wager down, because the Hialeah mutuel machines malfunctioned early in the day and the rest of the races were run as betless exhibitions.

At Santa Anita, jockey Jack Kaenel almost clicked with two recent longshots, coming in second with Got You Runnin at 193-1, and Royal Regatta at 89-1.

Royal Regatta missed by a nose to Mountain Bear in the San Gorgonio Handicap. Got You Runnin and Wild Kitty, who won their race at 24-1, were responsible for a track-record $5 exacta of $9,087.50.

Wesley Ward, unable to crack the tough jockey colony locally, has returned to the East to ride and is competing at Philadelphia Park.

Riding out of New York, the 17-year-old Ward won the Eclipse Award as the country’s outstanding apprentice in 1984, but went the entire ’85 Del Mar season without a winner. There were few wins at Santa Anita during the Oak Tree meeting, or at Hollywood Park, and Ward had only one win in the current meeting at Santa Anita.

Ward won three races, two of them stakes, with Temerity Prince, but then missed riding the horse in the Bay Meadows Handicap last month when his flight to San Francisco was delayed by fog.

Marco Castaneda replaced Ward that day, finishing fourth, and then Bill Shoemaker rode Temerity Prince for his second-place finish in the San Carlos Handicap Jan. 11.

Racing Notes Two oddities about the fire in which 45 horses died at Belmont Park last weekend: The fire department is only a few hundred yards away from the barn where the horses were stabled, and trainer Johnny Campo, who lost 36 of the horses, had moved into the barn to be closer to Belmont’s training track. Trainer P.G. Johnson’s horses had previously been in the barn. . . . A hearing in the case of Charlie Fletcher, the one-eyed jockey who has been denied a license, has been scheduled by the Kentucky State Racing Commission Feb. 10. Fletcher is getting financial support from the National Federation for the Blind. . . . The winner of the 1985 horse-of-the-year title, which is expected to be Spend a Buck, will be announced Feb. 6. . . . Wassl Dancer, a 4-year-old maiden who won at Santa Anita last week, is a son of Northern Dancer who sold for $500,000 as a yearling. . . . A couple of years ago, Kentucky breeder Tom Gentry bought Jim Mamakos’ house in San Marino. Last week at Keeneland, Mamakos paid $800,000 at auction for Kapalua Butterfly, a mare that he and Gentry owned in partnership. “The mare cost more than the house,” Gentry said. . . . Average attendance was down 14% from last year and betting was off 10% at the 59-night quarter horse meeting at Los Alamitos. The leading jockey was 19-year-old Kip Didericksen with 61 wins. Blane Schvaneveldt topped the trainers with 53 wins.