Columnist Ralph Siraco: Breeders’ Cup competitors renew rivalries

Ralph Siraco

Monday, Nov. 29, 1999 | 11:01 a.m.

Ralph Siraco is the horse racing writer for the Las Vegas Sun. His column appears Monday. His selections run Tuesday through Friday.

Yes Virginia, there is life after the Breeders' Cup. And, for a few, it came over the long Thanksgiving weekend with performances in holiday stakes races from coast to coast.

Some ran like turkeys, others stuffed their competition and one should have spent the holiday resting on her Breeders' Cup laurels.

On Saturday at Aqueduct in New York, the Cigar Mile highlighted a trio of stakes races.

The former NYRA Mile, renamed for Cigar, the famous two-time Horse of the Year, lost its marquee runner earlier in the week when it was announced Breeders' Cup Sprint winner Artax had been retired due to a training injury in preparation for the race.

That left non-Breeders' Cup participant Crafty Friend as the pre-race favorite. But it was a Breeders' Cup also-ran who stole the Mile and avenged his runner-up effort in the same event a year ago.

Affirmed Success, who finished 12th of 14 in the Breeders' Cup Sprint just three weeks before, captured the Cigar Mile with a perfect ride by Jorge Chavez. Adonis, who was Artax's stablemate, finished second while long shot Honorifico checked in third.

Earlier on the card, a Breeders' Cup no-show won the Remsen Stakes. Greenwood Lake, who passed on the Breeders' Cup Juvenile won by Anees, rallied to win the 1 1/8-mile stakes with all the looks of a future Kentucky Derby contender.

Trainer Nick Zito, who took some criticism for not running the colt in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile after he won his New York prep event -- the Champagne -- seven weeks ago, said he didn't want to rush the Derby 2000 hopeful. After a race in August and two in September before the Champagne victory, Zito felt it was time to back off a little.

The trainer said that horses are not machines. "You just can't keep going bang, bang, bang with these horses," he said.

Well, Greenwood Lake ran like a win machine on Saturday and did it with a bang. The Remsen, by the way, has been a key race for Derby success in this decade, having produced 1994 winner Go For Gin -- also trained by Zito -- and 1995 victor Thunder Gulch.

Churchill Downs, home of the Kentucky Derby, staged a pair of juvenile stakes on the closing day of its highly successful but short fall meeting on Saturday.

The Golden Rod for fillies attracted Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies winner Cash Run. The D. Wayne Lukas trainee was humbled in the 1 1/16-mile race by Humble Clerk, who returned a non-humble mutuel of $59.80. Although Cash Run did finish second, her image would have been better served if she stayed in the barn.

Later on the program, the Brown & Williamson Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes for the boys was presented at the same distance.

A pair of Breeders' Cup participants returned to contest the event with the D. Wayne Lukas trainee High Yield the favorite on the strength of his third-placed finish in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile. Trainer Bob Baffert, who was shut out on Breeders' Cup day, had Breeders' Cup Juvenile 11th-place finisher Captain Steve ready to make amends.

That is precisely what he did.

Captain Steve won with such authority that owner Mike Pegram may be dreaming of another victory on the first Saturday in May. It was under those same famed twin spires that his Real Quiet won the Derby in 1998. High Yield finished off the board while a promising local runner, Mighty, was runner-up.

At Hollywood Park on Saturday, a pair of Breeders' Cup "up-the-trackers" competed in the Citation Handicap as part of the track's turf festival. Hawksley Hill, who finished fifth in the Breeders' Cup Mile, and Brave Act, who had a troubled-trip sixth in the BC Mile, returned to square off again.

Brave Act proved his penchant for the Hollywood Park lawn with a stirring stretch run and pushed his record over the course to 4-for-6 with the victory as Hawksley Hill continued his hold on "hard luck horse of the year" honors with another troubled trip at the rail to finish off the board.

On Sunday at Aqueduct, the rescheduled Top Flight Handicap featured Breeders' Cup Sprint 10th-placed finisher Furlough. She settled for a dead heat in the runner-up spot with Harpia as neither one could catch the winner, Belle Cherie.

Hollywood Park wrapped up its Turf Festival on Sunday with a tripleheader. Trainer Bobby Frankel is 0-for-30 at the Breeders' Cup, but he was 2-for-2 in the half-million dollar Hollypark headliners.

Super Quercus, Frankel's French import, won the Hollywood Derby off his Oak Tree Derby third in his U. S. debut.

Two races later, Frankel was back in the winner's circle with the winner of the Matriarch Stakes. Run at the same distance as the Hollywood Derby of 1 1/8 miles on green, the filly and mare feature saw two Breeders' Cup runners return.

Tuzla, who was beaten by a neck when runner-up in the Breeders' Cup Mile, and Frankel's Spanish Fern, 14th and last in the Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Turf, were set to settle their private rubber match.

But it would be Happyanunoit beating the pair again.

Since adding blinkers, Happyanunoit has been almost perfect with three wins and one second -- beaten by a head -- while passing the Breeders' Cup. It seems she was not Breeders' Cup-eligible, so Frankel and company decided to forego the heavy penalty to enter the Breeders' Cup and instead pointed toward the Matriarch. Now one is left to ponder what would have happened at Gulfstream.

* COUNTDOWN TO HISTORY: Jockey Laffit Pincay, Jr. now needs just nine victories to tie Bill Shoemaker as the winningest rider in the history of the sport. The 52-year-old icon rode career winner number 8,824 in the Queen of the Green Handicap aboard Kit's Peak at Turf Paradise in that Arizona track's feature race on Sunday. Pincay has canceled a planned trip to his native Panama next month and is on pace to break the record in Southern California before the new century.