OAK TREE : Bertrando Might Give Headley Reason to Head for Kentucky

It takes a finely tuned mind to recall that trainer Bruce Headley once started a horse in a Breeders’ Cup race. There have been 49 Breeders’ Cup races since the series started in 1984, and Headley’s only starter came in race No. 2, the $1-million Juvenile Fillies at Hollywood Park in 1984.

Fine Spirit was her name, and the 2-year-old daughter of Secretariat raced close to the lead most of the way. Fine Spirit wound up fourth in the bump-and-run race, then was moved up to third place with the stewards’ disqualification of apparent winner Fran’s Valentine. Fine Spirit earned $108,000.

“Fine Spirit started out a lot like Bertrando,” Headley said Friday. “Both horses broke their maidens with big races.”

Bertrando, the winner of the Del Mar Futurity, is among the nine horses entered for Sunday’s $200,000 Norfolk Stakes at 1 1/16 miles, a major race for 2-year-olds at Santa Anita.

The second time Fine Spirit ran, only two weeks before her start in the Breeders’ Cup, she beat a Santa Anita field of maidens by 13 lengths. When Bertrando ran his first race, going six furlongs in maiden company at Del Mar on Aug. 25, he won by two lengths, but Headley said the performance was more powerful than it looked.

“He broke bad,” the trainer said. “He got bumped and squeezed. But once he got clear, he ran fast early and kept on going. He must have made up four lengths in the first quarter-mile.”

About two weeks after his debut, Bertrando ran in the $287,500 Del Mar Futurity as a $10,000 supplemental starter. Needing to finish in the first three to show a profit, Bertrando won by 3 1/2 lengths, earning $197,500.

“We wouldn’t have put up the $10,000 if we didn’t think we had a good chance,” Headley said.

Bertrando will be a supplemental starter again Sunday, also at a cost of $10,000.

The day of the Del Mar Futurity, Headley was back at Keeneland, in Lexington, Ky., attending a horse auction and was able to watch the race on television.

Bertrando, named after Bertrand Hug, a restaurateur in Rancho Santa Fe, is a California-bred son of Skywalker and Gentle Hands. Eddie Nahem bred the horse, who now races in the name of Gus Headley, the trainer’s 15-year-old son. Bruce Headley is vague about how his family acquired Bertrando.

“We got him through mutual negotiations,” is all Headley will say.

Skywalker could handle 1 1/4 miles, the Kentucky Derby distance, winning the 1986 Breeders’ Cup Classic over that distance at Santa Anita. In the Del Mar Futurity, a two-turn mile race, jockey Alex Solis broke Bertrando on top, and no one could catch up, including three of the horses--Zurich, Turbulent Kris and Big Sur--that will try again in the Norfolk.

“This is one of the best 2-year-olds I’ve ever had, and he probably is the best,” said Bruce Headley, 57, who has had a training license since starting out with a one-horse stable in 1959.

Mainly, he has been “Stay At Home” Headley, a contented trainer who thinks there are enough big purses offered in California without subjecting horses to the uncertainties of shipping elsewhere to run on strange race tracks. But Bertrando may get Headley to his second Breeders’ Cup, which would require a trip this time, because it is scheduled for Nov. 2 at Churchill Downs.

Bertrando wasn’t nominated to the $1-million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, so to run, the Headleys would have to pay a penalty of 12% of the purse--$120,000. The Juvenile is the same distance as the Norfolk.

Headley has been to Churchill Downs, though in a limited capacity. In 1956, he was the exercise rider for No Regrets, the California Derby winner who ran seventh in the Kentucky Derby.

“The money (for the Breeders’ Cup) won’t bother us if we think we belong there,” Headley said. “Do we have to win Sunday to go? Well, he has to win or run an awful good race for us to go.”

The Norfolk is a test for several trainers with Breeders’ Cup aspirations. The field starts with Richard of England on the inside. He will be ridden by Chris McCarron. Then comes Thinkernot, with Dave Patton; Bertrando, with Alex Solis; Bag, with David Flores; Zurich, with Gary Stevens; Big Sur, with Corey Nakatani; Turbulent Kris, with Laffit Pincay; Fax News, with Antonio Castanon, and Seahawk Gold, with Kent Desormeaux. Because of an overlap of ownership, Bertrando and Turbulent Kris will be coupled in the betting, as will Richard of England and Big Sur. All of the horses will carry 118 pounds.

Horse Racing Notes

Other supplemental starters in the Norfolk Stakes besides Bertrando are Bag and Seahawk Gold. . . . June Darling, winner of the first running of the Norfolk, in 1970, was supplemented into the race. Other supplemented winners have been Chief’s Crown, Saratoga Passage and Hawkster.

With Best Pal, last year’s Norfolk winner, not running today, Marquetry’s assignment will be easier in the Goodwood Handicap. Best Pal, a 3-year-old, would have carried the same weight as Marquetry, 119 pounds, had his handlers elected to run him. It would cost Best Pal’s owners $360,000 to supplement him into the Breeders’ Cup Classic, and he is not likely to run.

Opening Verse and Itsallgreektome are in the spotlight today at equal weights in the Keeneland Breeders’ Cup, at 1 1/8 miles on grass. Itsallgreektome, last year’s male turf champion, has won only once in seven starts this year, in the Elkhorn Stakes at Keeneland in April. . . . Sunday at Keeneland, Brought To Mind has drawn the No. 12 post in a 13-horse field in the Spinster Stakes at 1 1/8 miles. Fowda is also running in the fillies-and-mares race. . . . Keeneland usually doesn’t allow workouts over its grass course, but track officials made an exception for Tight Spot Friday. Preparing for the Breeders’ Cup Mile, Tight Spot worked six furlongs in 1:14.

Super May, scratched from the Oak Tree Invitational because of a foot abscess, is scheduled to run in the $750,000 Budweiser International at Laurel on Oct. 19. . . . Mister Frisky wrenched an ankle during a morning gallop and won’t be running during the Oak Tree season.