Supah Blitz Is Now Doing the Passing

When trainer Doug O’Neill and his clients spent $500,000 to obtain Supah Blitz, a horse on an 11-race losing streak, it was natural for some other horsemen to shake their heads.

But nobody is laughing at O’Neill and company now. Supah Blitz has made few wrong steps since changing barns, and he can add to his turnaround today with a victory in the $100,000 Native Diver Handicap at Hollywood Park.

Supah Blitz, 13th in the 2003 Kentucky Derby, had won only four of 29 starts for owner-trainer Manny Tortora when brothers Tom and Jerry Kagele and Mark Leib, upon the recommendation of O’Neill, bought him in mid-August. After moving from Florida to California, the 4-year-old colt has won the Del Mar Handicap, finished third in the Goodwood Handicap at Santa Anita and returned to Florida for a solid victory in the Carl G. Rose Classic at Calder.

While losing 11 in a row under Tortora -- a slump that began in July 2003 and didn’t end until his win on Sept. 5 at Del Mar -- Supah Blitz had a string of seconds that impressed O’Neill.

“He wasn’t getting beat by that much, and he was running against some fairly good horses,” said O’Neill, the leading trainer this season at Hollywood. “We watched some videos of several of his races and concluded that he wasn’t being ridden right. He was far back in some of those races, and just had too much to do. We thought that if more were asked of him early on, he could put some of those seconds in the win column.”

Supah Blitz emerged from the doldrums with Victor Espinoza in the saddle at Del Mar, where the horse picked up his first win in a graded race. Espinoza will ride him for the first time since then in the Native Diver.

“Victor really got after the horse at Del Mar,” O’Neill said. “He rode him exactly the way we hoped he would.”

Supah Blitz will carry 118 pounds today, one less than the expected favorite, Dynever, who’s running for the first time since his eighth-place finish in the Breeders’ Cup Classic.

Something else that appealed to O’Neill as he sniffed out Supah Blitz were the positive numbers assigned the horse by Len Ragozin, the nationally known speed guru.

“Actually, those numbers have stayed about the same since we got the horse,” O’Neill said. “The difference has been in the way he’s been ridden.”

*

It would be an upset if Whosleavingwho wins the Champion of Champions quarter horse race for a second time. The 6-year-old gelding won Los Alamitos’ signature race in 2002, but he was fourth last year and is 10-1 on the morning line against nine rivals tonight.

Trainer Paul Jones, who trains Whosleavingwho, has two other shots in the $500,000 race, but those horses, A Regal Choice and the filly Cash For Kas, are likely to go off at higher odds than Whosleavingwho. Jones, who won the race last year with The Down Side, is bidding for his third consecutive Champion of Champions. The stakes record belongs to Blane Schvaneveldt, who won with Refrigerator from 1992 to ’94 and added a fourth consecutive victory with My Debut in 1995. My Debut was Schvaneveldt’s most recent and ninth Champion of Champions win.

Tonight’s favorite, Catchmeinyourdreams, will be ridden by his regular jockey, Cody Jensen, who missed last year’s race because of a broken leg. Jacky Martin took over and rode Catchmeinyourdreams to a second-place finish, 1 1/4 lengths behind The Down Side. Jensen has ridden Catchmeinyourdreams in his last four starts, most recently in their victory in the Los Alamitos Championship on Oct. 16.

The 5-year-old gray gelding, whose paternal grandsire, the legendary Dash For Cash, won the Champion of Champions in 1976-77, won his 440-yard prep race in a near-record 21.28 seconds. The record for the Champion of Champions is :21.17, set by Dash For Cash in 1976.

Chris O’Dell, who trains Catchmeinyourdreams for Texan Kirk Goodfellow, had the second choice of post positions and he picked No. 9, outside of Be A Bono, whose trainer, Dan Francisco, had used the first pick to take No. 8.

“My horse loves the outside,” O’Dell said. “He’s won [several] Grade I races from the 9-hole.”

Catchmeinyourdreams’ 34-race career has been compromised by foot problems. He was an iffy starter in last year’s Champion of Champions.

“I don’t know if all that’s behind him,” O’Dell said, “but I do know that he’s been doing much better lately.”