Columnist Ralph Siraco: Holiday hiatus has players itching to get back at it

Ralph Siraco

Monday, Dec. 27, 2004 | 9:14 a.m.

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

The traditional Christmas present that horseplayers open the day after Christmas signaled the first of the new year for racing fans.

Santa Anita, which annually opens the day after Christmas, did so yesterday to a more-than-anxious fan base of players. There was a six-day vacancy of racing on the popular Southern California racing circuit since Hollywood Park wrapped up its Autumn Festival meeting on Monday. After all the holiday activities were complete, race players were ready to get back into the handicapping groove. Santa Anita will now race through the spring.

Southern Florida racing fans will have to wait until the "official" new year. The much anticipated Gulfstream Park winter meeting will kick off a coast-to-coast major league racing calendar when it opens the first week of January.

In a timely move, Azeri has been retired -- again.

The connections of the 2002 Horse of the Year and two-time Eclipse Award winner decided to pull the plug for good and turn the striking race mare out to the breeding shed. Las Vegan Michael Paulson, who manages the Paulson Living Trust, made the decision to retire the popular runner instead of continuing with an abbreviated racing schedule before her ultimate retirement this year anyway.

She leaves the racing side of the sport with 17 career victories, 14 of which were graded stakes engagements. Her 11 Grade I wins included a victory in the Breeders' Cup Distaff that led to her Horse of the Year crown. A winner of 11 consecutive races, she banked $4,079,820. After a brief retirement at the end of last year, Azeri returned to win a trio of big races this year under the guidance of new trainer D. Wayne Lukas.

She won the Apple Blossom at Oaklawn Park for the third time, the Go For Wand at Saratoga and the Spinster at Keeneland before finishing fifth to Ghostzapper in this year's Breeders' Cup Classic.

With the long shadow of 2004 looming at the threshold of 2005, we now look at those who did the best statistical work in racing this year.

The best team of the year goes to jockey John Velazquez and trainer Todd Pletcher. Complementing each other, they rank at the top of the national jockey and trainer earnings respectively. Velazquez will take the national money-won title with more than $22 million by his mounts this year. Pletcher will etch out the national money title with earnings exceeding $17.4 million over Bobby Frankel, who finishes a close runner-up at $16.7 million-plus.

Jockey Edgar Prado, who rode Birdstone to win the Belmont Stakes and Travers, finishes runner-up to Velazquez with $18.3 million in earnings. Southern California-based Victor Espinoza finishes third with more than $15.8 million while perennial leader Jerry Bailey settles for fourth this year with more than $15.7 million.

Steve Asmussen, who leads the nation by races won, finishes third in the trainers national money earnings category with more than $13.8 million. John Servis, who trained Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes winner Smarty Jones, finishes fourth with earnings of more than $8.9 million.

The most productive in pure races won are jockey Rafael Bejarano and trainer Steve Asmussen. Bejarano and Asmussen can still add to their totals through the end of the year, but have already safely tucked their titles away. Bejarano had racked up 447 victories through Wednesday to lead runner up Ramon Dominguez by more than 50 victories.

Asmussen broke the all-time yearly national races-won mark by a trainer when he scored his 497th victory in November. His personal goal was the 500-win plateau this year and through Wednesday he had 548. Scott Lake, who has been sparring with Asmussen for the national races-won title the last few years, will finish a solid runner-up with more than 372 wins. Trainer Jerry Hollendorfer, who is the kingpin of the Northern California racing circuit, is third at more than 304 wins.

Money-earnings leader Pletcher checks in fifth on the races-won list with more than 240 victories. By contrast, Frankel, second on the earnings board, is 17th on the races-won list. His 135 wins averaged more than $124,293 per victory, a statistic that is skewed by the fact that Frankel's Ghostzapper won the $4 million Breeders' Cup Classic.

The equine earnings list shows a trio of horses who made more than Ghostzapper's $2,590,000. Smarty Jones, as a result of multi-million dollar bonuses during his Triple Crown run, leads all horses ranked by earnings this year. Smarty earned $7,563,535 while taking the Arkansas-Kentucky Derby bonus plus victories in the first two legs of the Triple Crown. Dubai World Cup winner Pleasantly Perfect finished runner-up at $4,840,000 in earnings while the Japanese filly Dance In The Mood banked $2,866,978 for third on the list. Smarty's conqueror, Birdstone, finished 17th with $1,236,600 while Azeri finished 27th with $1,035,000.