GOLDEN GLIMPSES #146

December 22, 1998

By ED GOLDEN

The Eclipse Award winners will be announced shortly.

Four horses likely to be named champions did not win Breeders’ Cup races on Nov. 7--Skip Away (Horse of the Year); Real Quiet (3-year-old colt); Fiji (female turf horse); and Sharp Cat (older female). The latter three didn’t even race in the Breeders’ Cup. But that should not prevent Sharp Cat from winning an Eclipse on pure merit.

Sharp Cat, a 4-year-old chestnut daughter of the hyperactive Storm Cat trained by Wally Dollase, won her four 1998 starts by a combined total of 23 lengths. The shrill sound of an ill-timed warning siren at Churchill Downs a week before the Breeders’ Cup Distaff traumatized her to the point of death, forcing her to miss that race.

But despite her abstinence from racing’s Super Bowl, voting the championship to Breeders’ Cup Distaff winner Escena or runner-up Banshee Breeze would be a slight of the highest magnitude to Sharp Cat. It should be a slam-dunk for voters. But Dollase was cautious.

"I’m not even sure what the championship is based on," said the 61-year-old Dollase, who trained Jewel Princess to win the Breeders’ Cup Distaff and an Eclipse Award in 1996. "Escena won more money and won more Grade I races, so she deserves credit for that."

"But based on ability, the best filly of 1998 is Sharp Cat. Her Beyers are higher, if that means anything. Horses were rated in The Thoroughbred Times, by computer, I believe, and Sharp Cat had a higher rating than Skip Away. However they rate them, she had the highest rating of any horse in America. So that’s all I can say. She’s the best, and if she’d have met Escena, she’d have won. She beat her every time before."

Fortunately, Sharp Cat recovered from her ordeal, but she has been retired to Mill Ridge Farm in Lexington, Ky. The Thoroughbred Racing Corp. racing manager Richard Mulhall said she will be bred to 1992 Horse of the Year A.P.Indy.

Dollase says Sharp Cat is the best horse he has ever trained, and that includes Itsallgreektome, Windsharp and Jewel Princess.

Dollase trained Sharp Cat for just four races. In mid-December of 1997, he signed a three-year contract as private trainer for Prince Ahmad Salman, who races as The Thoroughbred Corp. At ages two and three, Sharp Cat was trained by D. Wayne Lukas, under whose supervision she won 11 of 18 starts. At that time, she was a typical Storm Cat--head-strong, speed crazy and whip-shy.

Dollase was reluctant to feed his ego and take credit for Sharp Cat’s scintillating campaign, in which she won the Bayakoa Handicap by 5 1/2 lengths; the Grade II Chula Vista Handicap by 3 1/2 lengths, both at Del Mar, before winning two Grade I’s at Belmont, the Ruffian and the Beldame, by three lengths and 11 lengths, respectively. She was never headed in any of the races and retired with earnings of $2,032,575. Her New York victories no doubt will favorably influence the East Coast voting bloc.

"It’s a combination of a number of things," Dollase said of Sharp Cat’s fulfillment of her vast potential. "No. 1, I took a lot of time to get her dead fit so she’d be impressive in her first race back (the Bayakoa, in which Sharp Cat faced only two rivals). She wasn’t an ounce short. We took our time and did it right. She matured, so she was more relaxed, and spacing her races well had something to do with it. I didn’t race her two-three weeks apart, because that can make a filly pretty wound up.

"But she was always very happy and perhaps that made the difference. Any horse who can run on the front end like she did, and sustain it, and still run the last eighth of a mile in exceptional time, is a great mare. That’s the hardest way to win a race.

"I guess these Storm Cats are a little high strung, more nervous than the average horse, and it just got to her," Dollase said of Sharp Cat’s pre-Breeders’ Cup nightmare. "She had two good works over the track before the Breeders’ Cup and everything was good, then all of a sudden, boom! It was just bad luck."

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One man’s champions: 2-year-old, Worldly Manner. His talent speaks for itself. Probable winner: Answer Lively. 2-year-old filly: Silverbulletday. A no-brainer. 3-year-old: Real Quiet. The Kentucky Derby winner did enough early and Victory Gallop and Coronado’s Quest didn’t do enough late. 3-year-old filly: Jersey Girl. Ho-hum. Older male: Awesome Again. In a perfect campaign, he beat Silver Charm twice and Skip Away in the Breeders’ Cup Classic. Probable winner: Skip Away. He’ll get the Guilt Vote from 1997. Older female: Sharp Cat. Nuff said. Male turf horse: Buck’s Boy. Yawn. Female turf horse: Fiji. Sprinter: Reraise. Best of poor lot.

GOLDEN PICKS

GRINGO SPIRIT--Made a right turn out of gate and was off last, but rallied with good courage. Clean start will make a difference against claiming maidens.

JETTIN JACK E--Hung tough in debut despite finishing fourth. Shouldn’t tarry long at $32,000 maiden level.

THE HOMESTRETCH: Laffit Pincay Jr. has 8,763 wins, 160 shy of Bill Shoemaker’s career record 8,833. Pincay’s victory on the Lukas-trained Tactical Cat in the $393,000 Hollywood Futurity was his first in a Grade I race since 1995. The Futurity was marred by the death of previously undefeated Premier Property, the 7-10 favorite who broke his left front cannon bone after finishing third in the race . . . Eddie Delahoussaye is zeroing in on his 6,000th victory. The 47-year-old Hall of Fame rider had 5,984 through Dec. 17 . . . Hollywood goes Vegas: Hollywood Park, wasting no time in an effort to cash in on full-card simulcasting from Florida and New York, will reduce general admission to $4 when full-card simulcasting becomes law in California on Jan. 1. The admission package will include free parking and program. Hollywood will increase individual seats with counter-top work spaces to 1,500. "Improvements often demand price increases," said Hollywood GM Eual Wyatt Jr. "We’ve taken the opposite approach to provide every opportunity for our patrons to enjoy full-card simulcasting." Santa Anita, Bay Meadows and Golden Gate also will offer full-card simulcasting. The first two cards from Florida will be from Calder, but starting Jan 3 when Gulfstream opens, full cards will be shown from the Hallandale track until its season ends in mid-March. Following Gulfstream’s season, California tracks are expected to import full cards from a combination of the Fair Grounds, Oaklawn Park and Keeneland. Northern and Southern California tracks will continue to offer races from the other live California tracks, meaning more than 40 races a day will be available for wagering. Due to the 20-race limit imposed by senate bill 27, simulcasts of races outside of the United States will no longer be offered by California thoroughbred tracks . . . Spotted in Hollywood Park’s clubhouse watching President Clinton’s address to the nation between races: Roger Clinton, the president’s younger brother.

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