Matiara Shifts Into High Gear

DEL MAR —  Time off for bad behavior was trainer Richard Mandella’s idea, the blinkers the notion of owner Alec Head. Together, these adjustments rejuvenated Matiara, a 4-year-old filly who ran a closing eighth of a mile in 11 1/5 seconds Saturday to win the $313,500 Ramona Handicap by 3 1/2 lengths.

Matiara, ridden by Corey Nakatani, the winner of last year’s Ramona with Possibly Perfect, swept past Alpride in the stretch to register her first victory since taking the Buena Vista Handicap at Santa Anita five months ago. During the interim, Matiara had a pair of third-place finishes and one sixth-place effort.

After she ran last in the Gamely Handicap at Hollywood Park on June 9, Mandella sent Matiara to his farm for an attitudinal interlude.

“She got sour on me,” Mandella said. “She seemed to be very miserable. She was too capable of a filly to run the way she did in that last race. She’s a little temperamental and you have to keep mixing around until you get the concoction right.”

Head, one of France’s most respected horsemen, raced Matiara in Europe last year with his daughter, Criquette, doing the training. Matiara’s North American campaign began late last year.

“Alec had talked to me a couple of months ago about trying blinkers,” Mandella said. “What we did was put an extension on her right blinker. Regular blinkers didn’t seem to work. She wanted to hang a little bit to the right. We used the blinker as a correctional blinker and it brought her right in.”

Running before a crowd of 19,004, Matiara’s time for 1 1/8 miles on grass was 1:49 1/5. She had won only one of five starts in California, but the bettors sent her off as the favorite and she paid $6.40 to win. Alpride, fifth in last year’s Ramona, carried high weight of 119 pounds, one more than the winner, and finished second, 1 1/4 lengths ahead of Pourquoi Pas. Matiara earned $193,500.

Alpride, the 13-10 second choice, was the early leader, with Radu Cool running just off her right flank and Matiara next. At the top of the stretch, the tiring Radu Cool drifted out, giving Nakatani room to move through. Radu Cool finished last in the six-horse field.

Nakatani, Del Mar’s leading rider, had not ridden Matiara before. “They said she was a little tough with it, that she wanted to muscle up and go,” he said. “I wanted to get her to settle. She did her thing, and she really came running.”

Horse Racing Notes

In races that supplement Del Mar’s card today, Louis Quatorze, winner of the Preakness, and Editor’s Note, the Belmont winner, are running in the $150,000 Jim Dandy at Saratoga, and Skip Away, second in both of those Triple Crown races, is the 9-5 favorite in the $750,000 Haskell Handicap at Monmouth Park. . . . At Del Mar, Fastness is 3-5 to become the first back-to-back winner of the Eddie Read Handicap since Wickerr in 1981-82. . . . Pesky Hippolyta, a 5-year-old mare, broke down at the top of the stretch in the third race and was destroyed after suffering a broken left front ankle. Her jockey, Matt Garcia, took the rest of the day off but said he would be riding today.