Columnist Ralph Siraco: Del Mar bettors aim for shot at $1 million

Ralph Siraco's horse racing column appears Monday, and his Southern California selections run Tuesday through Friday. Write to him c/o Las Vegas Sun, 800 S. Valley View Blvd., Las Vegas, NV 89107.

Del Mar kicks off its biggest week of the season today with a two-day pick-six carryover pool exceeding $825,000.

The players will chase that pot with another million dollars or so, and if there is only one lucky winner at the end of the day, that ticket holder will earn more than the winner of Sunday's main event -- the Pacific Classic.

Of course, the players will have another equal chance at the Pacific Classic million when the track where the turf meets the surf offers a guaranteed $1 million pick-six pool for Sunday's racing card.

When the National Thoroughbred Racing Association introduced the new "NTRA Champions on FOX" racing series that culminates with the Pacific Classic, it did not have the expected field for the 1 1/4 mile finale in mind.

The Pacific Classic was supposed to have been the summit for the points leaders in the inaugural eleven-race series that started at Gulfstream Park with the Donn Handicap on Jan. 30.

The series of races for the handicap division was devised to showcase the best older horses competing for points and money throughout the year with the payoff at Del Mar on Sunday.

As trainer Bob Baffert put it, instead of the Pacific Classic it has become the "Pacific Carnage" this year. And, he ought to know.

Baffert became the latest in a long line of disappointed conditioners who won an NTRA Champions on FOX race and sits out the Pacific Classic with a points leader. Instead, he will enter a non-point-earning pair in General Challenge and River Keen to go for the $600,000 first place money with no chance at the bonus earnings potential that he could have been going for with Hollywood Gold Cup winner Real Quiet.

Each of the "champions" races offered points to the top finishers in addition to the purse money of those individual events. The Pacific Classic is the race that accumulated points can be cashed in for bonus money. Depending on the finishing position and the amount of earned points, a horse can potentially earn more than the winner's share in the Pacific Classic.

That is, of course, if they make the race. The top half-dozen points leaders will not make the show, and of the others on the top 20 list, only one will make a start in the Pacific Classic for a chance at cashing in on bonus money.

That horse is 1998 Santa Anita Handicap winner Maleck who has 8 Champions points entering Sunday's race. If he should win the Pacific Classic then the Richard Mandella trainee would earn another $40,000 of bonus money.

So what happened to all the others? Except for points leader Behrens, who bypasses the Pacific Classic to stay on course for the Breeders' Cup Classic at Gulfstream Park, the byproduct of professional athletes -- injuries -- have taken their toll.

The winners of the first four Champions on FOX Super Series races have been retired to career-ending injuries. Donn Handicap winner Puerto Medero (tied for 4th on the list), Santa Anita Handicap victor Free House (tied in 4th), Real Quiet (3rd) for the Hollywood Gold Cup and Victory Gallop (2nd), who captured the Whitney Handicap, have all gone by the wayside.

Another on the leader board, Budroyale just annexed the Longacres Mile at Emerald Downs in Washington yesterday and obviously skips the Pacific Classic.

Now, by attrition, trainer Bobby Frankel has a chance to garner his fifth Pacific Classic trophy in only the ninth renewal of the Grade I event. Frankel was "Mr. Pacific Classic" early in the decade. After Best Pal won the first Classic by the sea in 1991, Frankel won the following four in a row with Missionary Ridge ('92), Bertrando ('93), then back-to-back with Tinners Way ('94 and '95).

This year he comes into the race with a dangerous Mazel Trick, who is fresh off a six-length victory in the San Diego Handicap over the Del Mar surface on August 7. In addition to the Baffert duo and Mandella's entrant, it appears the Pacific Classic drops off considerably.

So thin is this $1 million racethat trainer Julio Canani is considering a start with Ladies Din, who has not won a race on dirt since he broke his maiden for a tag. A much-accomplished turf campaigner, he is one of two lawn specialists that will try the tan for a million.

The other is a Brazilian longshot by the name of Jack Grandi who finished last in his U.S. debut in the restricted Escondido Handicap on Aug. 4. Barter Town is the only other probable as we enter the week.

Trainer James Bond passes up a chance at $230,000 in bonus monies plus the winner's share of the pot -- had Behrens competed and won -- in an effort to keep his stable star on course for the real Classic on Nov. 6, while the only bonus to this Pacific Classic is the A-for-effort on behalf of the NTRA and FOX for trying the concept.

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