Columnist Ralph Siraco: The cream has risen as year draws to close

Ralph Siraco

Monday, Nov. 10, 2003 | 9:44 a.m.

Ralph Siraco's horse racing column appears Monday and his Southern California selections run Tuesday-Sunday.

With a little more than seven weeks left in the year, and with the Breeders' Cup championship day of racing now in the record books, there appears to be the same familiar names at the top of the sport's leader board.

Like all professional sports, the numbers usually tell the story of the stars in any given year. And, this year in thoroughbred racing, there are very few exceptions to the statistics.

The one exception skewing the leader board this year is the absence of jockey Julie Krone. Not in the top 20 of either the races-won or money-won category will you find her name. A Hall of Fame rider, Krone is in the mist of an amazing comeback in the saddle. She has not cracked the national leader board, yet she has had a banner year. Krone, 40, won the three major stakes races at Del Mar this summer with Candy Ride in the Pacific Classic, Halfbridled in the Debutante and Siphonizer in the Futurity. She parlayed Halfbridled's victory into a Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies triumph to become the first female rider to win a Breeders' Cup race in its 20-year history. She also became the first female rider to win a California Cup race on Saturday when she guided Coconut Mango to victory in the Starter Sprint. She returned to the Cal-Cup winners circle three rac es later atop Blind Ambition who captured the Cal-Cup Distaff.

Void of Krone, the national leader board does represent the overall best of this year.

Going into last weekend, the standings looked like this:

With several weeks to go, it is certain that Frankel will finish with a mark that will be hard to top. Frankel, who also has a record 23 Grade I wins this year, is pointing his beaten Breeders' Cup Distaff winner Sightseek to the $300,000 Falls City Handicap on Nov. 27 and his Breeders' Cup Classic runner up Medaglia d'Oro to the $500,000 Clark Handicap on Nov. 28, both at Churchill Downs.

Frankel's stable has also added French stakes winner Intercontinental, who is pointing for the $500,000 Matriarch Stakes at the Hollywood Park fall meeting on Nov. 30. Todd Pletcher is a distant runner-up at $11,247,058, more than $6 million in arrears, while Steven Asmussen is third on the list with $10,183,356. Richard Mandella, who had a career day with a record four Breeders' Cup victories, climbed to fourth in the standings with $9,270,762, of which $4,564,040 was earned by his runners in those Breeders' Cup events.

The leader boards in races-won sheds a different light.

Both Moon Ballad and Sulamani are owned by the powerful International racing stable of Godolphin Racing, Inc. Pleasantly Perfect (Mandella-trained & Solis-ridden) is third on the list after his victory in the $4 million Breeders' Cup Classic. Favorite to win the Horse Of The Year title for 2003 is Mineshaft. Although he retired before the Breeders' Cup, his earnings of $2,209,686 was good enough for fourth place in the standings.

Medaglia d'Oro sits in sixth place at $1,990,000, but, could move up with a Clark Handicap victory. Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes winner Funny Cide sits in seventh place with $1,963,200 and has been turned out for the rest of the year. Belmont Stakes winner Empire Maker, who was retired in late summer, finishes eighth in the standings with earnings of $1,936,200, exactly $27,000 short of Funny Cide.