SANTA ANITA : Early On, He Wasn’t Highly Prized

When Prized was an unraced 2-year-old, his owner and breeder, Barbara LaCroix, would have sold him cheap.

Prized was consigned to a sale at Calder Race Course near Miami, Fla., where LaCroix put a reserve on him of $24,000--the smallest amount she would accept without buying him back.

“He was toward the end of the (sales) catalogue, and then it got real cold,” LaCroix said. “The place emptied out, and nobody was interested in this horse.”

Later, LaCroix made a deal to sell Prized privately for $70,000, but a veterinarian for the buyer examined the colt and squelched the sale.

LaCroix, deciding to keep the horse, sent him to trainer Larry Geiger at Calder, where after two close second-place finishes in the fall of 1988, Prized won by 8 1/2 lengths at 1 1/16 miles.

Geiger had already received a $150,000 offer for Prized, but LaCroix told him the horse was no longer for sale. After that impressive victory around two turns, representatives from the Clover Racing Stable in Pasadena appeared with an offer of about $400,000 for 50% of the horse.

LaCroix made the deal, and since then, Geiger may be the only party with regrets, because after Prized’s third-place finish in the Tropical Park Derby in January 1989, Clover officers Barry Irwin and Jeff Siegel were instrumental in moving the horse to California and trainer Neil Drysdale.

Under Drysdale, Prized has increased his earnings to almost $2 million, winning races last year that had total purses of $1 million and $2 million. Every assignment has been formidable, and Prized has succeeded more than he has failed, stamping himself as one of the country’s most versatile horses.

Last year, he:

--Beat Sunday Silence, who was not far removed from victories in the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness and en route to the horse-of-the-year title.

--Went to Canada and won the Molson Million.

--Won the $2-million Breeders’ Cup Turf at Gulfstream Park while running on grass for the first time.

Prized started this year with one more bravura performance. Staying on grass, he went back in distance, from 1 1/2 miles to a mile, and won the Arcadia Handicap at Santa Anita. Among his victims was Steinlen, who was voted last year’s male grass champion.

“As far as I’m concerned, that was his greatest race,” LaCroix said. “But now on Sunday he’ll be in his toughest race.”

She was referring to the $300,000 San Luis Rey Stakes, which has drawn Frankly Perfect, winner of the stake last year; Hawkster, who at the same 1 1/2-mile distance set a world record at Santa Anita last year; El Senor, coming in from Florida; Delegant, and Just as Lucky.

The success of Prized has been satisfying to the Clover syndicate members because they discovered a sleeper who has become a star. It has been heartwarming to LaCroix because the colt comes from her Ocala, Fla., farm where his dam and grand-dam were both raised.

Meadowbrook Farm, a 425-acre layout where Kris S., Prized’s 13-year-old sire, stands at stud, almost got away from LaCroix when the breeding business nosedived in the mid-1980s. When Joe LaCroix, Barbara’s 60-year-old husband, died of a heart attack in the winner’s circle minutes after his Unpredictable won the San Miguel Stakes at Santa Anita in 1982, the estate consisted mostly of land and horses. There was the balance of $425,000 due on Kris S., the son of Roberto whom Joe LaCroix had bought as a stallion prospect for $500,000.

“When Joe was alive, I watched everything he did, but he made all the decisions,” Barbara LaCroix said. “Then when I got involved, no one was buying horses anymore. I had to sell a piece of land to keep us going for a few years. Otherwise, I don’t think we would have made it. Joe was the one who died, but in a way, it was really the old Barbara who died, too. Now, I’m just like Joe used to be.”

Now, because of Prized, lifetime breeding shares in Kris S. are worth $200,000. Prized himself was recently syndicated for $6 million, and next year he’s expected to be sent to Meadowbrook, where his stallion career will start right alongside his sire.

“Kentucky wants (Prized),” LaCroix said. “But he’ll be standing in Florida. Kentucky is strong enough.”

LaCroix recently added to her holdings by buying the 1,200-acre Jockey Club Farm in Ocala. By rights, it ought to be renamed Prized Manor.

LaCroix has two sons--one who trains horses and another, a Florida schoolteacher, who resisted his father’s longtime involvement in racing and breeding.

“Coming back from the hard times has made our successes better,” LaCroix said. “The negative of selling half of Prized has been overcome by the fact that the sale eventually sent him to Neil Drysdale. He has a masterful style with horses, and he’s done some daring things with this one. Running him on grass in the Breeders’ Cup was a real gutsy move.”

Last year was marred, however, by a serious bicycle accident involving LaCroix. Riding 20 miles a day was not uncommon for her. In mid-July, shortly before Prized upset Sunday Silence in the Swaps Stakes at Hollywood Park, LaCroix was en route from Venice to her home in Manhattan Beach when a car struck her bicycle from behind. She went flying over the handlebars and suffered a fractured skull.

“I’m all right now,” she said. “But I never had the bike fixed. Now I just roller-skate.”

Horse Racing Notes

Here’s the lineup for the San Luis Rey, starting at the rail: Prized, with Eddie Delahoussaye riding; El Senor, Laffit Pincay; Delegant, Kent Desormeaux; Hawkster, Pat Valenzuela; Just as Lucky, Gary Stevens, and Frankly Perfect, Chris McCarron. All will carry 126 pounds.

Desormeaux starts a five-day suspension Sunday, but he will be able to ride in the San Luis Rey because it’s a designated race that supersedes suspensions. . . . Charlie Whittingham, who trains Frankly Perfect, has won the San Luis Rey nine times, including the last two and six of the last eight.

Prized might return to dirt racing at Hollywood Park. One of the reasons he has raced on grass at Santa Anita is that Neil Drysdale, like some other trainers, is unhappy with the condition of the main track there. Most of Drysdale’s horses are stabled at Hollywood. . . . Cheval Volant, who ran fourth in the Santa Anita Oaks, suffered a hairline fracture of the cannon bone in her right foreleg and will be sidelined about four months.