Colunist Ralph Siraco: Hollywood Park cooks up hot holiday racing

Monday, Nov. 20, 2000 | 10:04 a.m.

Ralph Siraco's horse racing column appears Monday and his Southern California selections run Tuesday through Friday. Reach him c/o Las Vegas Sun, 800 S. Valley View Blvd., Las Vegas, NV 89107.

As racing moves into the holiday season and a long Thanksgiving weekend of competition, most of the sport's championship performances and awards have been earmarked for a Christmas gift-wrapped delivery.

The Breeders' Cup annually is the sport's showdown day where championships are won -- as it should be -- on the track.

And although this year's edition doled out most of the honors on the afternoon of November 4, there may be a few Eclipse trophies still sitting on the shelf waiting for their recipients.

While the Clark Handicap at Churchill Downs should feature some of the participants left over from the Breeders' Cup that was contested over the same race track, and the Cigar Mile should produce a well-balanced competitive renewal at Aqueduct during the holiday weekend, the Turf Festival at Hollywood Park provides the stage for some late vote-getting for an Eclipse Award.

Six Graded turf stakes highlight the 10th Turf Festival at the Inglewood oval over Thanksgiving Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

This year's freshman class of horses will have their chance on the greensward in the $200,000 Miesque Stakes on Friday for the fillies and the $200,000 Generous Stakes for the boys on Saturday -- both at the distance of one mile.

In addition to the Miesque on Friday, the $200,000 Hollywood Turf Express will feature the speedy sprinters at 5 1/2 furlongs. The $500,000 Citation Handicap shares the Saturday billing with the Generous, which will showcase turf handicap runners at 1 1/16 miles.

The grand finale comes on Sunday with a pair of Grade I half-million dollar events. Older fillies and mares will battle in the 1 1/8-mile Matriarch and sophomore turf titans will slug it out at the same distance for the same purse in the Early Times Hollywood Derby.

The Matriarch was one of three key races for the filly and mare turf division before the creation of the Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Turf that was instituted two years ago. In addition to the Matriarch, the Yellow Ribbon at Oak Tree and the Flower Bowl at Belmont were the trio of division-deciding races before Breeders' Cup designed that specific race. Now, although Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Turf winner Perfect Sting is all but certain to win the Eclipse Award for the category, the Matriarch could serve as a springboard for a future division leader. It promises to be a competitive race as well.

The Hollywood Derby, however, could serve as the event that wins the Eclipse Award for one of its expected entrants.

Trainer Neil Drysdale began Breeders' Cup day with a shot at Horse of the Year honors for his Fusaichi Pegasus. When Riboletta failed as the odds-on favorite in the Breeders' Cup Distaff, Drysdale needed only to win the Breeders' Cup Classic with Fusaichi Pegasus to wrap up the title. Fu-Peg went the way of Riboletta, though, and Tiznow now sits as the inside choice for Horse of the Year. The Hall of Fame conditioner was not shut out of a Breeders' Cup victory, however, as his War Chant won the Mile in impressive fashion.

It is War Chant, and not the now-retired Fusaichi Pegasus, who could send Drysdale to the podium the night they hand out the Eclipse Awards.

War Chant is expected to run in the Hollywood Derby. It will be his final career race before joining his more famous stablemate in the stallion barn. The son of Danzig has been overshadowed by Fusaichi Pegasus almost since his arrival at Drysdale's barn a year ago. Now he has a chance to gain the recognition that he deserves and earn the award Fu-Peg couldn't.

With a victory in the Hollywood Derby on Sunday, War Chant would stand squarely in the running for the Eclipse Award for Best Turf Male of the year. And, if he can accomplish the feat, he would win the trophy from seven starts spanning an unsuccessful run at the Kentucky Derby through a victorious fall.

Although War Chant failed in his quest for the Kentucky Derby -- finishing ninth to winner Fusaichi Pegasus -- he returned to capture the Grade II Oak Tree Mile on the Santa Anita lawn on Oct. 14. That impressive victory, for his initial grass experience off a five-month layoff against older horses for the first time, gained him the chance to compete in the Breeders' Cup. Again in the Breeders' Cup Mile, War Chant mowed the competition down with an awesome turn of foot that carried him to victory.

With no real standout in the division, if War Chant can win his third Graded turf start within a six-week period, beating older rivals twice and the best grass performers of his generation as well, then the Eclipse voters would be hard pressed not to give War Chant the nod.

Although the Irish-bred Kalanisi won the Breeders' Cup Turf in his only stateside start and others -- such as Chester House with a victory in the Arlington Million, John's Call and Manndar -- have shown flashes of brilliance, it would be the trio of recent victories that would put War Chant over the top.

War Chant is out of the 1993 Eclipse Award-winning 3-year-old filly Hollywood Wildcat, who also won that year's Breeders' Cup Distaff for owner Irwin Cowan.

Commenting on his decision to give War Chant the chance in the Hollywood Derby before his announced retirement, Cowan said, "Every breeder is dying to get an Eclipse. ... If he (War Chant) doesn't run (in the Hollywood Derby), it will be because we don't think he was up to it."

With Neil Drysdale as his trainer, that is an understatement. If War Chant is "up to it," however, then the Hollywood Derby is his for the taking -- and maybe an Eclipse Award too.

War Chant can finally step out of the Fusaichi Pegasus shadow, give trainer Neil Drysdale an unlikely Eclipse Award and begin a voter recount of his own.