SANTA ANITA : Trainer Wins, Loses in Santa Lucia

For Gary Jones, Saturday’s $81,150 Santa Lucia Handicap was a mixed blessing.

Formidable Lady gave the trainer his meeting-high seventh stakes win, but the mare she overtook near the wire was her stablemate and 9-10 favorite Fantastic Look, who is owned by John and Betty Mabee’s Golden Eagle Farm.

“I’m happy as hell for the winners, and, hopefully, the Mabees aren’t too mad,” Jones joked after Formidable Lady won by a half-length in 1:43 2/5 for the 1 1/16 miles.

“I’m supposed to go out to dinner with them tonight. Do any of you guys want to go out with him? They’ll probably make me buy now and we’re going to an expensive place.”

Tied for third in the trainer standings with Bobby Frankel, Jones has been on something of a stakes roll. The Santa Lucia was his third success in seven days, following Jungle Pioneer’s win in last Saturday’s Santa Gertrudes and Fantastic Ways’ victory in Wednesday’s Providencia.

The beaten favorite in Golden Gate’s Miss America Handicap last month, Fantastic Look appeared to be home free in the final sixteenth, but Formidable Lady, a 5-year-old Silver Hawk mare, flew past her in the closing yards.

Idle since winning a grass allowance race Feb. 17, Formidable Lady returned $11 and picked up $45,900 for her owners.

“Quite frankly, I was watching Fantastic Look because I thought she was going to win,” said Jones. “At about the sixteenth pole, I saw the other mare coming.

“Actually, I think Formidable Lady is better on grass, but she’s always run well on the dirt at Santa Anita. She had been training well. The last three weeks she’s been dynamite.”

Never far off the moderate pace under Martin Pedroza, Formidable Lady’s win was her third on the main track in 12 tries. On turf, she’s won four of 14.

“Gary said to get her against the bridle and get her into the race, then stay behind them,” Pedroza said. “He told me not to get her stopped because she’s so big, you can’t get her started again, so I took her outside.

“When I hit her at first, she didn’t start running, but I wasn’t worried.”

The Santa Lucia was one of the few races Chris McCarron didn’t win. For the second consecutive Saturday, he had five victories, running his total for the meeting to 105, 23 better than Gary Stevens.

“When we turned for home, I thought she’d win,” McCarron said. “She waited a little when she got in front, but she started again when the other filly came to her. But she wasn’t good enough to hold the other one off. She just got outrun.”

A winner in her American debut Feb. 20, Heart Of Joy heads a field of 10 fillies and mares entered in today’s $212,100 Santa Anita Budweiser Breeders’ Cup at a mile on turf.

Trained by Jones and owned by Golden Eagle Farm, Heart Of Joy went wire-to-wire in beating Odalea by two lengths. McCarron will ride the 119-pound highweight, who drew the outside post.

Jones may also send out Performing Arts, who was successful in her initial start in this country. The 4-year-old Minstrel filly rallied from off the pace to win Feb. 14. With McCarron aboard Heart Of Joy, David Flores will ride if she goes .

Others in the field include Spring Daffodil, who arrives from Ireland with a three-race winning streak, Las Cienegas Handicap winner Flower Girl, Land Breeze, Mahaska, Daring Doone, Estrella Fuega, Gaelic Bird and Fire The Groom.

Pleasant Variety, the upset winner of last month’s San Luis Rey Stakes, and El Senor, who has done his best work in the East, are the co-highweights at 118 pounds among 14 horses invited to next Sunday’s $500,000 San Juan Capistrano.

Run at 1 3/4 miles on the next-to-last day of Santa Anita’s winter-spring meeting, the Capistrano was won in a surprise last year by Delegant.

The other invitees are Live The Dream and Phantom Breeze (117), Mashkour and River Warden (115), Dr. Root, Montubio and Royal Reach (114), Intelligently and Valdali (113) and Aksar and Peinture Bleue (112) and Star Standing (111). The latter two are fillies and Star Standing, the winner of Gulfstream Park’s Orchid Handicap in March, is expected to arrive at Santa Anita today.

In a ceremony after the third race, a statue of Santa Anita’s all-time leading trainer, Charlie Whittingham, was unveiled in the Paddock Gardens. There’s also a statue of Whittingham’s dog, Toby, looking up at the trainer’s bust.

The work was done by Celou Bonnet and was sponsored by the Los Angeles Turf Club, the Oak Tree Racing Assn. and several owners trainers who employed Whittingham.

Horse Racing Notes

Chris McCarron’s wins Saturday came with Generous Ego, No Newts, High Rank, Gray Slewpy and 10-1 shot Thunder Man. . . . Vieille Vigne, the 2-1 second choice, was third in the Santa Lucia, then came Nasers Pride and Pampered Star. Dominant Dancer and Questioning were scratched. . . . Valiant Pete worked a half-mile in 33 flat Friday, readying for his $100,000 winner-take-all match race with quarter horse Griswold Saturday. Julio Garcia will ride Valiant Pete for trainer John Sadler, and Kip Diderickson will ride Griswold, who is trained by Dan Francisco. Sunny Blossom and Olympic Prospect were the first two thoroughbreds scheduled to run in the half-mile race, but both backed out. . . . Itsallgreektome, who finished fourth in the San Francisco Mile in his 1991 debut, will try to bounce back today in the $109,450 Elkhorn Stakes at Keeneland. The Eclipse Award winner will have six opponents in the 1 1/8 mile grass race, for which he is the 123-pound topweight. Russell Baze will ride Itsallgreektome, who will break from the rail. . . . Corey Nakatani, Itsallgreektome’s regular rider, will be at Oaklawn Park riding Lite Light in the $250,000 Fantasy Stakes. Lite Light’s main threat is Withallprobability, a Wayne Lukas-trained filly who is perfect in four starts. . . . The owner-trainer combination of Ed Friendly and Dan Hendricks had a double Saturday, winning the sixth with Devilish Tune and the seventh with Gray Slewpy.