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September 22, 1998 By ED GOLDEN
MIKE MITCHELL STAKES HIS CLAIM FOR BETTER HORSES Mike Mitchell can take a horse from another trainer and turn it into a winner like nobody else. He’s the consummate claiming trainer. The 50-year-old Bakersfield native has been at it for 25 years and has more than a dozen Southern California training titles under his expansive belt, But winning $10,000 claiming races can become monotonous, and Mitchell has reached a point where he aspires to better things on a consistent basis, and not just an infrequent stakes winner such as Semillon, his best of recent seasons. He hopes to begin on that path when Oak Tree begins its 30th season, a 32-day run at Santa Anita on Sept. 30. "I had a slow Del Mar meet," said Mitchell, who won with eight of 46 starters, 17 percent. That’s a solid meet for most trainers, but subpar for Mitchell. "I didn’t have the numbers I usually do," Mitchell said. "But my aim right now is to stay away from the $10,000 horses unless I really like one. I’ll take it, but I’m trying to work into better horses. I’ve won enough training titles. I just need better horses." To that end, Mitchell has a non-starter Broad Brush colt who’s a half-brother to the stakes-placed Miss Hot Salsa. He’ll run at Oak Tree. He also has a $300,000 Royal Academy filly who will run there. "They’re nice horses," Mitchell says. "They’re not claiming horses and they act like good ones." Mitchell bred the Broad Brush colt, who’s out of Mitchell’s stakes-winning mare, Miss High Blade, herself a former claimer, who earned about $500,000 before she was retired. Currently, she’s in foal to Dixieland Band. The Broad Brush colt, named Mr. Broad Blade, is her second foal. "He’s the closest thing I’ll get to the Kentucky Derby," says Mitchell. "He’s everything I’d want in a race horse." And, after years of toiling in the blue-collar arena, everything Mike Mitchell deserves. THE HOMESTRETCH: Once a New Yawka, always a New Yawka: the Daily Racing Form is moving its editorial headquarters from Phoenix to New York, where new editor and publisher Steve Crist once plied his trade for the New York Times. Expect personnel changes to roll on . . . Santa Anita’s stable area is jumping with activity after the summer doldrums. It hasn’t had so many horses in years. Several big stables have opted to train at the Arcadia track instead of Hollywood, possibly because they are convinced the Inglewood surface has caused problems. Says one insider: "After watching the large number of sore horses coming to the track from Del Mar, I can easily see why there were so many breakdowns. Trainers I talked with had nothing negative to say about the Del Mar surface. They just cited too much training and racing." Thirteen horses had to be put down at Del Mar, 11 due to leg injuries . . . Yes, that was Chris McCarron working Silver Charm and a couple of other Bob Baffert-trained horses at Santa Anita. Gary Stevens, Silver Charm’s regular rider, returned to action Saturday after recovering for a month from surgery on both knees and will ride the 1997 Kentucky Derby winner in Saturday’s Kentucky Cup Classic at Turfway Park . . . The horse deaths at Del Mar, seven in the first nine days, caused the San Diego-area media to lock into a negative feeding frenzy and hammer the track relentlessly throughout the 43-day meet. "They just hooked into us after the first week and never let up," said one Del Mar executive. Still, Del Mar again can lay claim as the North America leader in average daily attendance. Total attendance at the track and its 16 satellites was $1,275,685 for a daily average of 29,667, down three percent from a year ago. Total handle was $504,872 for a daily average of $11,741,228, down 2.6 percent from 1997 . . . Jock Most Likely to Succeed at Santa Anita this meet, aside from the usual suspects, is Jose Carlos (please call him J.C.) Gonzalez, a 22-year-old apprentice who rides with the eye of the tiger. Gonzalez competes with uncompromising fervor, like Roberto Duran fought in his prime. "Sometimes when I get on horses," says the native of Jalisco, Mexico, "the trainers say to me, ‘Hey, can you laugh a little bit?’ What they don’t know is that I’m real serious about this game. I’m just trying to focus on what I’m doing. I’m trying to win every race, whether it’s a $5,000 claimer or a $50,000 stakes." . . . Santa Anita racegoers can watch every NFL game on Sundays this season. Through the NFL’s "Sunday Ticket" TV package, every game played will be available on selected monitors throughout the grandstand. Among Santa Anita’s new wrinkles this meet is a rubberized surface called "Playsafe" on all horse paths in the Paddock Garden. Oak Tree even spent $300,000 for the peons of the ponies, the stable hands. They can now enjoy an exercise room with a variety of fitness equipment; a game room with pool and ping pong tables; a movie room with big screen TV; an employee market, open seven days a week; an air-conditioned main room; a full service laundry room; and last, but not least, mutuel windows . . . OK, I’m convinced. Skip Away’s smashing victory in the Woodward all but wrapped up Horse of the Year honors. And it did one other thing. It saved John Toffan $800,000. Skip Away has two more scheduled starts before he’s retired: the $1 million Jockey Club Gold Cup on Oct. 10 and the $4 million Breeders’ Cup Classic on Nov. 7.
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GOLDEN GLIMPSES #133
