Gentlemen Starts Their Engines

Trying to find something for everybody, Santa Anita is running $900,000 worth of prep races Sunday.

The $500,000 Strub, the $300,000 San Antonio Handicap and the $100,000 Santa Catalina are preps because they are tuneups for bigger things at the meeting. The Strub and the San Antonio are likely to yield contenders for the $1-million Santa Anita Handicap on March 2, and the Santa Catalina is one of the litmus tests for the $750,000 Santa Anita Derby on April 5.

The Strub, named after the father and son who ran the track for almost 60 years, used to stand as a Santa Anita fixture, but it is subject to demotion from Grade I status by the North American Graded Stakes Committee, and Sunday’s golden-anniversary running may not help. None of the probable starters is ranked higher than 38th on the Daily Racing Form’s ratings of the country’s top 40 horses.

Thus, races with smaller purses are the headliners on the card, and in terms of attractions, Santa Anita has struck a multiple mother lode.

The 1 1/8-mile San Antonio has drawn Alphabet Soup and Gentlemen, who are Nos. 2 and 3, respectively, behind the Florida-based Skip Away in those Racing Form rankings, and the 1 1/16-mile Santa Catalina brings together two 3-year-old prospects, Boston Harbor, last year’s champion 2-year-old male, and Swiss Yodeler, winner of the Hollywood Futurity in December.

Alphabet Soup won the Breeders’ Cup Classic last year, and then finished second to Cigar in the Eclipse awards voting for best older male, but it is Gentlemen, a 5-year-old from Argentina, who is causing all the buzz.

Gentlemen’s methodical progress under trainer Richard Mandella, whose South American pipeline has produced other gushers, is fermenting expectations that he might be a sequel to the retired Cigar, a daunting possibility for both horse and horseman.

David Hofmans, besides training Alphabet Soup, cares for Dramatic Gold, who ran second as Gentlemen obliterated the track record with a 1:45 1/5 time for 1 1/8 miles in the Native Diver Handicap at Hollywood Park on Dec. 22.

“My horse got a 103 Beyer number out of that last race, and he still got beat by nine lengths,” Hofmans said.

Beyer ratings, the brainchild of handicapper writer Andy Beyer, are sophisticated speed assessments based on track conditions, times of other races and other factors. Gentlemen’s rating for the Native Diver was 118, higher than anything Cigar earned in 1996.

Still getting to know Gentlemen, who had won four of six starts in Argentina, Mandella blamed himself for the horse’s last-place finish in his U.S. debut, on dirt at Hollywood Park last June. Gentlemen won three in a row on grass after that, then returned to dirt for the Native Diver.

Even so, Sonny Hine, the trainer of Skip Away, wants to see more of Gentlemen before declaring him a star.

“The day Gentlemen broke the record, $8,000 horses were running [5 1/2 furlongs] in 1:03,” Hine said. “And what was behind him? Dramatic Gold is just a horse.”

Hine has noted the serious training injuries at Santa Anita this winter and probably won’t bring his colt west. Skip Away will begin his career as a 4-year-old in the $300,000 Donn Handicap at Gulfstream Park on March 8.

Mandella may not run Gentlemen in the Big ‘Cap, perhaps saving him for the $4-million Dubai World Cup on March 29. Mandella has other horses in his barn--the grass standout Sandpit and Siphon--who are more likely to run in the Big ‘Cap.

The San Antonio won’t draw a big field. Besides Gentlemen and Alphabet Soup, other probables are Kingdom Found and Eltish.

Northern Afleet, Ambivalent and Ready To Order, the first three finishers in the San Fernando on Jan. 11, are expected for the Strub, which hasn’t been won by a horse that went on to capture an Eclipse award since Alysheba in 1988.

The 1 1/16-mile Santa Catalina isn’t even a Grade III race--the lowest classification--but once in a while it’s won by horses of consequence. Two years ago, for example, it was a peg for Larry The Legend, the Santa Anita Derby winner.

This time, the Santa Catalina features a Breeders’ Cup winner in Boston Harbor and Swiss Yodeler, still lightly regarded despite his six victories and $617,200 in purses. Only one of those wins, however, has been around two turns, one explanation for Swiss Yodeler’s 19-1 odds when he was the front-end winner of the Hollywood Futurity, run at the same distance as the Santa Catalina.

Other probables Sunday are Flew The City and Greed Is Good, winners of a split minor stake Jan. 2, and Hello, a European import who has never raced on dirt.

A year ago, Santa Anita also scheduled three stakes on Strub day, but the track ran the San Antonio the day before, to better balance the stakes weekend. This time, Santa Anita is beefing up the Sunday card at the expense of Saturday’s program, which is left with a sprint stake for older horses.

Bettors may not care, since their priority is full-field cards. Belmont Park has run multiple-stakes cards for several years, to mixed results at the turnstiles.

“We’ve kicked this around a lot,” said Mark Stephens, vice president for marketing at Santa Anita. “What we’re trying to do this year is bring people out for the good older horses, and maybe at the same time whet their interest in the 3-year-olds that are gearing up for the Santa Anita Derby and the Triple Crown.

Horse Racing Notes

Jerry Bailey, who rode Boston Harbor to victory in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, will be in from Gulfstream Park to ride the colt Sunday. . . . Gentlemen and Alphabet Soup are the co-high weights in the San Antonio with 122 pounds each. . . . Victor Avenue, 120 pounds, and High Stakes Player, 118, are the high weights for Saturday’s $200,000 Palos Verdes Handicap. Also in the seven-horse field for the six-furlong race is Larry The Legend. . . . Skip Away won’t run in the $4-million Dubai World Cup on March 29. “I don’t want to knock the horse out by sending him all the way over there,” trainer Sonny Hine said. “Money isn’t everything.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Day at the Races

Santa Anita’s three stakes races Sunday:

$100,000 SANTA CATALINA STAKES

* Race and post time: To be determined

* Designation: 1 1/16-mile prep for $750,000 Santa Anita Derby on April 5.

* Horses to watch: Boston Harbor (1996 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winner) and Swiss Yodeler (Hollywood Futurity winner).

$300,000 SAN ANTONIO HANDICAP

* Race: Seventh. Post time: 3:15 p.m.

* Designation: 1 1/8-mile Grade II prep for $1-million Santa Anita Handicap on March 2.

* Horses to watch: Alphabet Soup (1996 Breeders’ Cup Classic winner) and Gentlemen (Hollywood Park track record-holder at 1 1/8 miles, 1:45 1/5).

$500,000 STRUB STAKES

* Race: Eighth. Post time: 3:45 p.m.

* Designation: 1 1/4-mile Grade I (4-year-olds only) prep for Santa Anita Handicap.

* Horses to watch: Editor’s Note (1996 Belmont winner) and Northern Afleet (San Fernando Stakes winner).