Ralph Siraco’s notes

Friday, Sept. 24, 1999 | 10 a.m.

Racing at the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds in Pomona ends its 18-day meet this weekend with two marquee events.

Fairplex Park will stage the Pomona Derby on Saturday and the Ralph M. Hines Pomona Invitational Handicap on Sunday.

Leading jockey Martin Pedroza will sit on the bench for the final three days of the meeting as a result of a suspension handed him by the track stewards. They slapped the rider with the penalty for failing to fully ride out a mount and causing his horse to finish fourth instead of third in a race earlier in the week. Pedroza will now see if he has enough of a cushion on Iggy Puglisi.

Going into Wednesday's races, Pedroza had 22 wins to Puglisi's 15. Pedroza, who had the 22 wins from 83 mounts, is batting 27 percent winners to share the highest percentage with Corey Black, currently in seventh place, who has 7-of-26 at the stand.

Trainer Paul Aguirre is well on his way to another Fairplex Park trainers title while batting an incredible 54 percent wins with 7-of-13 through Tuesday.

Kentucky racing will be treated to a twinbill of stakes events this weekend from opposite sides of the Bluegrass State.

On Saturday at Turfway Park the Kentucky Cup day of racing features several divisions of Breeders' Cup hopefuls competing in a series of Kentucky Cup races. The centerpiece is the Classic. This year's edition will have to go light years to beat the thriller of last year's renewal. After 1 1/8 miles of a mano-a-mano duel, Silver Charm and Wild Rush came to the finish line inseparably as they hit the wire in a dead heat for the win.

This year a pair of Cats hope to add a semblance of last year's renewal when they head a bigger-than-expected field of contenders. Classic Cat will try to give trainer Bob Baffert his third consecutive victory in the event. Baffert trained Silver Charm last year and Semoran to annex the 1997 renewal.

Cat Thief will try to provide trainer D. Wayne Lukas with his third Kentucky Cup trophy. Lukas won the first two Classics with Tabasco Cat's inaugural win in 1994 and the next year with Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes winner Thunder Gulch. He will again try to do it with a 3-year-old, as he is the only trainer to win the event with sophomores.

The Kentucky Turf Festival will be run on Sunday at Kentucky Downs. These events will highlight the turf runners in their divisions of competition. The all-turf race course conducts live racing only two weekends a year. Ironically, Turfway Park does not have a turf course.

At New York's Belmont Park the sprinters will take center stage for the Grade I Vosburgh Handicap. This 7-furlong race is usually pivotal for eastern-based sprinters prepping for the Breeders' Cup Sprint at Gulfstream Park on Nov. 6.

It was thought that this year's renewal would come up light, but several trainers have recharted their courses with Sprint hopefuls and now it appears that a full field will line up to face top contenders Crafty Friend, Artax and Stormin Fever. Although the Vosburgh is a key prep for the Breeders' Cup Sprint, it should be noted that no Vosburgh winner has come back to parlay that into a Breeders' Cup score.

Speaking of the Breeders' Cup, it was announced on Wednesday that the mini-Breeders' Cup meet at Gulfstream Park this year will have guaranteed Pick-6 pools on all three days of the session. On Nov. 5 there will be a $1 million pick-6 guarantee, then on Breeders' Cup Saturday the guarantee will be $5 million. On Sunday there will be another $1 million guarantee in the pick-6.

For the first time in its history, Breeders' Cup is sponsoring a three-day meet to promote the event, with an additional 20 races run on Friday and Sunday worth a total of $2.3 million in purses. Each day's pick-6 guarantee will be paid out on that day.

Jockey Laffit Pincay Jr. continues to chip away at Bill Shoemaker's all-time win record of 8,833 victories. The 52-years-young Hall of Fame rider won three races at Emerald Downs on their closing weekend to come within 43 wins of the sport's all-time high. Pincay was invited several years ago to ride at Emerald Downs in an effort to hasten what now appears inevitable. But, Pincay has ridden all of his career at the very best meetings against the cream of the riding colony crop. He has amassed those victories over decades of high-level competition against the likes of the very man he is now on the threshold of beating.

Pincay will make a personal appearance in Las Vegas on Oct. 18 at the Orleans race book. He will be available for a question-and-answer session followed by a chance to get his autograph.

The early bird deadline for the National Handicapping Challenge at the Orleans is today. For those entering the tournament by close of the race book today, there will be a bonus contest after the regular tournament is over for those who enter early bird only. The $500 entry entitles you to the early bird contest in addition to the chance to turn that entry into more than $100,000 top prize money in the National Handicapping Challenge on Oct. 14-16.