Horse Racing / Bill Christine : Three Starters in Read Hoping to Use Race as Prep for Million

DEL MAR —  Last year, five horses used the Eddie Read Handicap at Del Mar as a prep race for the Budweiser-Arlington Million in Chicago two weeks later.

Tsunami Slew and Al Mamoon, who ran 1-2 in the Read, were seventh and sixth, respectively, in the Million, and the rest of the Del Mar contingent finished even farther back at Arlington Park.

This year, there are three weeks between Sunday’s Read and the Million, and three horses bound for Arlington will try to use the Del Mar race as a springboard. Besides Al Mamoon, the Million invitees who will run in the $150,000 Read are Zoffany and Palace Music.

A fourth horse who was invited to this year’s Million on Aug. 31, the mare Estrapade, also will be seen here this weekend, running Saturday against other females in the $75,000 Palomar Handicap.

Alphabatim, another Million horse, was nominated for the Read, which is 1 1/8 miles on grass, but he isn’t expected to run.

Zoffany, who won the Inglewood and Sunset handicaps at Hollywood Park this summer, has been assigned high weight of 123 pounds in the Read, followed by Palace Music at 122 and Al Mamoon at 121.

Others likely to start are Prince True with 120 pounds, Truce Maker with 115, Will Dancer and Raipillan with 113 each, Corridor Key with 112 and Schiller with 111. Palace Music, Prince True and Will Dancer would give trainer Charlie Whittingham three starters.

John Gosden, who trains Zoffany, may have three horses running in the Palomar--La Koumia, Spectacular Joke and Justicara. La Koumia has the highest weight in that trio at 120, which means she will get four pounds from the top-weighted Estrapade, who won the Beverly Hills Handicap for Whittingham at Hollywood on June 29.

Skywalker isn’t scheduled to run in the Eddie Read, but if he did, he would carry 121 pounds, the same weight that was assigned Al Mamoon and Alphabatim.

That means that Tom Robbins, the racing secretary at Del Mar, has a higher opinion of Skywalker than the panel that determined which 14 horses would get invitations to the Arlington Million. Al Mamoon and Alphabatim were invited to the Million, but Skywalker was not and in fact is ranked only 20th on the list of horses. If any of the first 14 don’t run, other horses on the list move up.

It’s understandable why Skywalker wasn’t given more consideration at Arlington. Although he has won two stakes this year--the Mervyn Leroy Handicap at Hollywood and the San Diego Handicap at Del Mar--and run third in two others, Skywalker has never run on grass.

The Breeders’ Cup, a success on the track but an event that is desperate for better television ratings, didn’t help itself with the switch of dates from Nov. 14 to Nov. 21 for its seven-race, $10-million program at Hollywood Park in 1987.

Nov. 21 is the day of the UCLA-USC football game, which will dominate the ratings in the hefty Los Angeles market.

In 1984, when the first Breeders’ Cup races were held at Hollywood Park, the TV opposition was the USC-Washington football game, with the winner going to the Rose Bowl. The Los Angeles audience for the game was about three times greater than for the racing, and nationally the game outdrew the Breeders’ Cup by a smaller, but still substantial, margin.

There were two reasons for the change in dates for the 1987 Breeders’ Cup: NBC, which will carry the telecast, had a conflict on the early date, and the Oak Tree meeting at Santa Anita isn’t scheduled to end until Nov. 16. The tentative date for the start of the Hollywood meeting is Nov. 18.

Arthur Watson, president of NBC Sports, wouldn’t say what the network’s conflict is. “We realize the bind we’re in, competing with UCLA-USC, but we have something scheduled on Nov. 14 that we just can’t get out of,” Watson said.

Oak Tree runs a six-week meeting in the fall every second year, followed by five weeks at Hollywood. In alternate years, Hollywood gets the six-week season, with Oak Tree running five. In 1987, the California Horse Racing Board has penciled in Oak Tree for its scheduled six-week season.

“The 1987 dates haven’t been approved yet, and with something as important as the Breeders’ Cup, there might be room to be flexible,” said a source close to the board. “But when you have two tracks that don’t talk to each other, what can you do?”

Day harness racing will be presented in the Los Angeles area for the first time since 1967 when Los Alamitos opens its 45-date season next Wednesday.

Los Alamitos will offer programs at 2 p.m. on Wednesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays through Sept. 7. Friday cards will begin at 4:30 p.m. There is one Monday on the schedule--Labor Day, Sept. 1.

From Sept. 9 through closing day, Oct. 11, the races will be held at night, Tuesday through Saturday.

On Oct. 10, Los Alamitos will hold a Breeders Crown race worth $313,000--a California record for a harness event--if 10 horses start. The Breeders Crown, harness racing’s version of the thoroughbred Breeders’ Cup, consists of 12 races held at different tracks over a 12-week period.

The Breeders Crown race at Los Alamitos, which is for pacing males 4 years old and up, is expected to draw Forrest Skipper, who is undefeated and heavily favored to win horse-of-the-year honors this year.

At Los Alamitos’ first harness meeting this year, attendance was off 17.9% and betting dropped 8.5% from a comparable season the year before.

Racing Notes Teleprompter, who’ll try to win the Budweiser-Arlington Million for the second time Aug. 31, hasn’t won a race since running first in the Million last year. Teleprompter has had two seconds and three thirds in six starts. . . . John Henry, working six furlongs for the first time since he started his comeback in May, was clocked in a so-so 1:12 3/5 Tuesday and will work the same distance Monday morning at Del Mar. . . . Besides the Eddie Read Sunday, Del Mar is also running the $50,000 Rancho Bernardo Handicap. Despite running with 125 pounds, eight more than the next weighted horses, Take My Picture is expected to have only a few opponents.

The Del Mar invitational yearling sale will be held Saturday, Sunday and Monday nights, with 210 horses being offered. . . . A seminar for potential horse owners will be held at Del Mar at 11 a.m. Saturday. . . . Trainer Blane Schvaneveldt will saddle four of the seven quarter horse starters Saturday night in the $100,000 Go Man Go Handicap at Hollywood Park. Easy Conversation, who has beaten Cash Rate, last year’s world champion, in their last two meetings, will try for a third straight. . . . Through eight nights, Hollywood’s first quarter horse meeting is averaging 8,700 in attendance and $1.1 million in handle. The track reportedly needs a $1-million average to break even.

Cheapskate, owned by Jim and Joyce Vandervoort of Rancho Mirage, won last Monday’s $100,000 Albany Stakes at Saratoga. . . . Ogygian, considered by some to be the best 3-year-old colt in training, skipped last Sunday’s Jim Dandy at Saratoga because of an off track. . . . Trainer Laz Barrera plans to start Persevered in next Wednesday’s Sanford Stakes at Saratoga. Barrera said that Persevered, a 2-year-old son of Triple Crown champion Affirmed, “lost all chance” when he was bumped by a horse leaving the gate in the Hollywood Juvenile Championship on July 19. . . . The NBC telecast of this year’s Breeders’ Cup at Santa Anita will include a $250,000 steeplechase race from Fair Hill Race Course in Elkton, Md.