BREEDERS' CUP : Mr. Smith Will Go to Santa Anita : Jockey: The leading U.S. rider has never raced at the Arcadia track. But he will be in position to make a lasting first impression on Nov. 6.

BREEDERS’ CUP : Mr. Smith Will Go to Santa Anita : Jockey: The leading U.S. rider has never raced at the Arcadia track. But he will be in position to make a lasting first impression on Nov. 6.

By BILL CHRISTINE

Oct. 30, 1993 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

When Mike Smith starts riding winners, they come in bunches.

When he was 20, Smith won five races in one day at Canterbury Downs south of Minneapolis. Three weeks later, Smith had another five-victory day at the Minnesota track.

In January of 1992, Smith rode six winners on a card at Aqueduct, a feat that no jockey had accomplished in New York in 11 years. Seventeen days later, Smith rode six more winners at Aqueduct.

Belmont Park ran four major stakes races the weekend of Oct. 9-10 and Smith won all four, with Apple Tree, Birdonthewire, Mi Cielo and Sky Beauty. He also had a fifth victory that weekend.

Smith, 28, is the kind of rider trainers want next Saturday for the Breeders’ Cup at Santa Anita, even though the New York-based Smith has never ridden at the track. He is expected to pick up some mounts at the track this week and will ride in all seven for the Breeders’ Cup: Lure in the Mile, Devil His Due in the Classic, Sky Beauty in the Distaff, Apple Tree in the Turf, Birdonthewire in the Sprint, Shepherd’s Field in the Juvenile and Heavenly Prize in the Juvenile Fillies. All but Devil His Due will be coming into the Breeders’ Cup off victories.

Lure, a 4-year-old Danzig colt, gave Smith his biggest victory, in the Mile last year at Gulfstream Park. Only two horses--Miesque in the Mile in 1987-88 and Bayakoa in the Distaff in 1989-90--have repeated as Breeders’ Cup winners.

Smith has ridden nine times in the Breeders’ Cup since making his debut in the series at Belmont in 1990. He says the Mile on grass and the six-furlong Sprint on dirt are the most difficult to ride.

“Compared to Belmont (1 1/2 miles around), I guess Santa Anita (a mile) will be like a bullring,” Smith said. “Any place it’s run, the Mile is like a dash. I’ll need good position with Lure, because it’s a race where you’ve got to be in the right place at the right time. Sometimes, the best horses don’t win the Mile.”

Lure races for his breeder, Claiborne Farm in Paris, Ky., and is trained by Shug McGaughey, who on Oct. 16 at Belmont saddled six winners, five of them in stakes and one of them, Lure, in the Kelso Handicap.

Smith will also ride Heavenly Prize for McGaughey.

“This summer and this fall, Mike’s taken his ability to another level,” McGaughey said. “He has so much confidence now. I hope he gets to that next level with my horses in California.”

Smith first got the mount on Lure at Belmont in March of 1992, when Lure had only three races on his record and was still considered a dirt horse. Smith won the first time he rode Lure and now has ridden him in 14 consecutive starts, which have produced nine victories and four seconds.

Lure beat Star Of Cozzene at 1 1/8 miles early this year, then lost to him twice at longer distances and on soft turf last summer. Star Of Cozzene, bought by Japanese interests for about $3 million recently, is skipping the Breeders’ Cup Turf to run in the $3.4-million Japan Cup in Tokyo on Nov. 28.

“I don’t think that my horse disliked the soft turf, it was just that he was up against a good one like Star Of Cozzene,” Smith said. “That race in New York (the Kelso) should set him up great for the Breeders’ Cup. When he runs, I just let him settle in behind horses. . . . I don’t think he can be beat if he gets the chance to run his race.”

Michael Earl Smith, the son of a jockey, was born in Roswell, N.M. He rode his first winner at Santa Fe Downs in 1982. Later that year, he began riding in the Midwest, where Pat Day is the kingpin.

“I’ve been successful everywhere I’ve ridden,” Smith said. “But it’s true, I was in Pat’s shadow at Churchill Downs.”

In the winter of 1989, trainer Bill Mott suggested that Smith test the waters in New York.

“I was happy in Kentucky, and I didn’t want to lose any business, but I decided to go,” Smith said. “When I got there, I found out that I knew more people than I thought I did.”

In early 1990, he got the mount on Thirty Six Red for trainer Nick Zito, winning the Gotham Stakes the first time he rode him and winning the Wood Memorial two weeks later. Smith had parlayed his New York success into a ride in the Kentucky Derby, and although Thirty Six Red finished ninth at Churchill Downs, Smith’s career got a boost.

Last year, Smith led the New York jockey colony with 29 stakes winners and ranked sixth nationally in purses with $11 million. This year, he has won more than 30 New York stakes, having doubled the total of the next rider on the list. With $11.4 million in purses, he is $1.3 million ahead of Kent Desormeaux in the battle for the national money title.

“I’ve been given the quality horses to ride,” Smith said. “They’re the kind of horses that would make anybody’s year.”