SANTA ANITA : Can First-Timer Live Up To Lineage?

Although most serious horseplayers rely on statistics, videotape analyses and the odds board in making their decisions, a good memory for thoroughbred ancestry sometimes comes in handy. Take Sunday’s Santa Anita card, for instance.

Live the Dream, one of the favorites in the featured San Marcos Handicap, and War Craft, a 3-year-old making his debut in the sixth race, are both sons of the T.V. Lark mare Became a Lark. Live the Dream, whose sire is Northern Baby, and War Craft, by Ack Ack, are among six sons and daughters of Became a Lark to race in California for trainer Charlie Whittingham and his partners, Mary Bradley and Nancy Chandler.

So now comes the tough part. Will the unraced War Craft take after Live the Dream, a slow starter who did not win his first race until May of 1989, well into his 3-year-old season? By the end of the year, however, Live the Dream had won two stakes, including the Hollywood Derby, and $257,900.

War Craft could just as easily follow in the footsteps of:

--Bang Bang Bang, also by Ack Ack, now 10 years old and still earning his keep with trainer Richard Lockwood at Turf Paradise in Phoenix.

--Became a Cat, an 8-year-old who is now a stable pony for Whittingham after a zero-for-seven racing career.

--Or Proud Cat, a stakes-placed 6-year-old who was claimed when Whittingham took him to New York last spring.

“Charlie says he looks just like Ack Ack, and that’s enough to get excited about right there,” Bradley said Friday. “But there are so many ifs in this business. An owner is not really allowed to get excited at this stage.”

It was Bradley who got the clan rolling in 1975 when she bought Became a Lark and her dam, the French mare Blow Up II, for $25,000. After selling one-third interests to Whittingham and Chandler, she has gotten more than her money’s worth out of the family.

But if War Craft lives up to his early promise, he could upstage even Live the Dream. Since last summer, when the bay colt was training at San Luis Rey Downs, War Craft has done nothing to disappoint Whittingham or his staff. Chris McCarron will be riding him Sunday.

“The first time I got on him he worked five-eighths in :57,” McCarron said. “He’s a sensible colt with a lot of class. If he is as competitive in the afternoon as he is in the mornings, we’ll be in good shape.”

Whittingham, a master of the understatement, said that War Craft could turn out to be a good horse. Others who have earned that description recently include champions Ferdinand, Estrapade and Sunday Silence, who has replaced 1971 horse of the year Ack Ack as “the best horse I’ve ever trained,” according to Whittingham.

Whittingham was roasted and toasted at a benefit dinner last Sunday night at a downtown hotel. Among those getting the last laugh on the 76-year-old trainer was Bradley, who has been Whittingham’s patron for more than 25 years.

“Woody Stephens said I should get an Eclipse Award just for lasting that long with Charlie,” said Bradley, whose red colors have been carried by such Whittingham stars as Cougar II, Greinton, Castilla and Swingtime.

Bradley had the audience roaring with her tongue-in-cheek “owner’s guide,” a seven-point checklist guaranteed to rub an old-fashioned trainer like Whittingham in the worst possible way. The highlights included:

--Always consult with the groom and then the veterinarian before asking the trainer about your horse.

--Read the condition book carefully and let your trainer know what races conflict with your social schedule.

--Select your own yearlings, rather than bothering the trainer.

--Call your trainer each evening at 10 p.m., wish him a good night and hang up immediately.

“Mary forgot one,” Whittingham added a few days later. “‘The only thing more dangerous than a mugger with a knife is an owner with a condition book.

“I’ve had owners come up to me after buying a yearling and say, ‘Now, just take as much time as you need with this horse. When do we run?’ ”

In recent years, however, one of Whittingham’s biggest owners has become . . . Charlie Whittingham. Each month, Whittingham the owner runs up a bill with Whittingham the trainer that reaches well into five figures.

It is not unusual for a well established trainer to double as an owner--Wayne Lukas, Laz Barrera and Jerry Fanning often show up on both sides of the program. But it does have its downside.

“It can get awful expensive if you’re not lucky,” Whittingham said. “Fortunately, I’ve had a little luck.”

Horse Racing Notes

Live the Dream’s opposition in the 10-furlong San Marcos includes stablemate River Warden, San Gabriel Handicap winner Wretham, Citation Handicap winner Fair Judgment and Allen Paulson’s Samoan. Racing secretary Tom Robbins said the full width of the turf course would be used to accommodate the 14-horse field, and that the race would stay on the grass barring anything but the most unexpected downpour. . . . Today’s seven-furlong Santa Monica Handicap for fillies and mares rematches Stormy but Valid and Survive, the 1-2 finishers in the Las Flores Handicap Jan. 6, plus Hidden Garden, Solid Eight, Hot Novel, Stocks Up and Baba Cool.

Cheval Volant, winner of the Hollywood Starlet Stakes, heads the field in today’s Bay Meadows Oaks in San Mateo. Santa Anita will offer betting on the 3-year-old filly race at the end of the live nine-race program. . . . Sandy Hawley got a rude welcome back Friday when his two mounts beat exactly one horse. The popular Canadian star will ride Chilean stakes winner Wizard in the San Marcos.

Charlie Whittingham ended Friday’s program zero for 29 at the Santa Anita meeting so far, while trainer Steve Young continued his hot streak by winning the seventh race with For My Friends. Young is now six for 10.