From Out of State? You’re Out of Luck

DEL MAR —  Plainly stated, the Pacific Classic is a sinkhole for shippers.

Cigar, unbeaten for 22 months, was paying 10 cents on the dollar when he couldn’t withstand trainer Richard Mandella’s two-horse stratagem in 1996. Jolie’s Halo, the second betting choice, took one step out of the gate and lost his jockey as well as the race in 1992. In 1991, the first year Del Mar’s $1-million race was run, Unbridled came in as a Kentucky Derby and Breeders’ Cup Classic winner. He finished third and never won another race.

Pacific Classic winners don’t come from Belmont Park or Saratoga or Churchill Downs, those Valhallas back east. Nine of the previous winners ran their prep races 100 miles from here, at Hollywood Park. Three more had a race over the track before they conquered Del Mar.

And Bertrando, the 1993 winner whose race line shows Monmouth Park in New Jersey as his prep for Del Mar, was as California as a pair of sunglasses. Seventeen of his 24 races were run in the state where he was born. He lost all seven races outside California, but on Pacific Classic day he had game.

All of this having been said, trainers Murray Johnson and Walter Bindner Jr. either know something nobody else knows, or they’re in league with loons. Either way, Joe Harper, who runs Del Mar, is happy to have Johnson’s Perfect Drift and Bindner’s Colonial Colony along for the ride in today’s 14th edition of the Pacific Classic.

“Just because you put up a million dollars,” Harper said, “that doesn’t mean it’s that easy to get good horses to come. It’s a real plus that we’ve got both these horses out here.”

Both horses, who came from Kentucky, have an assortment of travel stickers on their suitcases. They’ve both run over 10 different tracks, and Perfect Drift has run in California before, although Johnson wasn’t enamored with the roughly run Breeders’ Cup Classic last year at Santa Anita, where Perfect Drift, supposedly at the top of his game, finished sixth while Pleasantly Perfect was scoring a 14-1 upset.

Pleasantly Perfect is the 6-5 favorite and Perfect Drift comes next at 7-2. Colonial Colony is 8-1 in the eight-horse field.

Perfect Drift, who underwent throat surgery in June, hasn’t won a race this year in five tries, and he hasn’t won a race since September 2003. Johnson thought a five-race losing streak might be over this month at Saratoga, but Perfect Drift and his jockey, Pat Day, were beaten by Roses In May in the Whitney Handicap.

“He did everything but win,” Johnson said to Day as they walked off the track.

“No,” Day said. “I rode him impatiently. He should have won.”

A 5-year-old gelding, Perfect Drift has nine wins, six seconds and two thirds in 23 starts, with earnings of $2.5 million. In the Pacific Classic field, only Pleasantly Perfect has earned more. Both Johnson and Mandella, who trains Pleasantly Perfect, are hoping for a legitimate pace that can set up stretch runs for their horses. A win today for Perfect Drift would rank alongside his victory in last year’s Stephen Foster Handicap at Churchill Downs. Second that day was Mineshaft, who went on to win horse-of-the-year honors.

“There have been a few bumps along the way this year,” said Johnson, an Australian who used to train in California. “But he’s been doing his best recently and he’s a real racehorse.”

Day, 50, is in the Racing Hall of Fame in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. Colonial Colony’s jockey, the 22-year-old Rafael Bejarano, leads the country with 312 victories, and he outrode Day, 81 wins to 54, to earn the meet title at Churchill Downs.

Colonial Colony, a 6-year-old, is a son of 1981 Derby winner Pleasant Colony, as is Pleasantly Perfect. The book on Pleasant Colony’s offspring is that they need time to develop, but Colonial Colony took this to absurdity. From 2001, when he first raced, until early this summer, the horse started 28 races and won only three. But he piled up a batch of seconds and thirds, and as the paychecks kept coming in, Bindner and owner-breeder Chris Nolan didn’t despair.

Still, Colonial Colony was so obscure that he was listed as a gelding, and until recently no one bothered to correct the record. Finally, on June 12, Colonial Colony caught a sloppy track in the Grade I Stephen Foster and beat Southern Image by a nose. Perfect Drift finished third. Colonial Colony, who carried 111 pounds, 11 less than Southern Image and eight less than Perfect Drift, was 62-1. It was his first stakes victory.

The other Pacific Classic horses are California-based. Five of the six have run at the current meet, which matches the profile of some other Classic winners. It won’t be any easier for these shippers than it was for Cigar and the rest.

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Race facts

Race: Pacific Classic at Del Mar.

Post time: 4:46 p.m. (eighth race on a 10-race card).

TV: 4 p.m. on ESPN2.

Distance: 1 1/4 miles.

Purse: $1 million.

Today’s field

*--* PP Horse Jockey Odds 1 El Elogiado Kent Desormeaux 30-1 2 Colonial Colony Rafael Bejarano 8-1 3 Choctaw Nation Victor Espinoza 9-2 4 Perfect Drift Pat Day 7-2 5 Pleasantly Perfect Jerry Bailey 6-5 6 Total Impact Mike Smith 6-1 7 Night Patrol Tyler Baze 20-1 8 During Corey Nakatani 12-1

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