DEL MAR : Anyone Can Make the Claim, but Frankel’s in Hall of Fame

DEL MAR — If there’s a long-winded ceremony Monday for the inductions into the Racing Hall of Fame at Saratoga Springs, N.Y., trainer Bobby Frankel will not share the blame. Frankel promises that in being enshrined he will quickly thank a few individuals, thank everybody, accept his plaque and move on.

Frankel’s short list for thank-yous will include names that not even the most experienced racing follower could recognize.

It starts with Gertrude Frankel, dead for 22 years.

“My mom took me to my first racetrack,” the Brooklyn-born Frankel said. “We went to see the trotters at Roosevelt Raceway. She was a great handicapper, and she taught me how to gamble. We went everyplace to the races. When Saratoga was open, we couldn’t get up there, so we’d take the ferry to Monmouth Park.”

Then there’s Roy Sylvan.

“Roy ponied horses at Belmont Park,” Frankel said. “When I was 19 or 20, we were at a party, and he asked me to come out some morning. That was my introduction to the backstretch.”

And Johnny Campo, the veteran New York trainer.

“He helped me get my first trainer’s license back there,” said the 54-year-old Frankel, who has been on the California circuit since 1972.

And the lesser-known Tony Vitterati.

“He led me to John Petrosi at Finger Lakes, and Petrosi gave me my first horse to train,” Frankel said.

And Sal Marciano and Bill Frankel (no relation).

“They were some of my early owners,” Frankel said. “In 1972, when I won [a record] 60 races at Hollywood Park, I think Bill Frankel owned all but five of [the horses].”

In the 1970s, the claiming game was Frankel’s forte, and the brash invader with the heavy New Yawk accent played the claiming box like a virtuoso.

At Del Mar on Friday morning, sitting on a bench outside the racing office with jockeys’ agents and fellow trainers egging him on, Frankel regaled everyone with recollections of his claiming coups. Most of Frankel’s best horses come from a more recent era. About the only time he claims a horse these days is when he spots a stallion prospect that’s running.

For the past few years, Frankel has been the principal American trainer for Juddmonte Farms, the worldwide operation of Prince Khalid Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. The barn bulges with stakes winners now, but the claiming stories are still the ones Frankel relishes. In New York, he won the Suburban Handicap with Barometer, a horse he had claimed for $15,000. He won four stakes at Del Mar, including the Eddie Read Handicap twice, with Wickerr, a $50,000 claim.

Mike Mitchell, whose horses are stabled near Frankel’s, is a friend and an admirer.

“I’ve idolized Bobby,” Mitchell said. “I’ve worked for some outstanding trainers--Farrell Jones, Ron McAnally--but Frankel is the very best. He’s A-plus in all departments. Starting out, I wanted to work for him, but there was always a long waiting list. There aren’t many people besides him that I’d trust to buy a horse on their word alone. I bought Semillon [a stakes winner] strictly on Bobby’s word, because his word is like gold.”

Last week, on opening day, Mitchell tried to beat Frankel’s Chilly Billy with Turbulent Dancer in a division of the Oceanside Stakes.

“I really liked my horse,” Mitchell said. “Bobby’s horse had been with him only a few days, and I thought that might give me an edge. But knowing Bobby, I finally said to myself that he’d probably still have that horse ready to run the race of his life. And he did.”

Having reliable, long-term help around the barn is an underrated advantage for a trainer, and Frankel’s No. 1 assistant is Humberto Ascanio, who has been with the outfit since 1973. Exercise rider Al Schwizer, another former New Yorker, has been aboard for most of the California years.

“Bobby’s the best trainer there is,” said Schwizer, who tapped his head and added: “He’s got something up here that nobody’s got. . . . He just figures out how to get horses to run for him.”

Frankel won his only Eclipse Award for training in 1993, after his horses led the country with $8.6 million in earnings. Since 1983, Frankel is the only trainer to break Wayne Lukas’ hold on the national money title. In ‘93, Frankel ran 1-2-4 with Bertrando, Missionary Ridge and Marquetry in Del Mar’s $1-million Pacific Classic. With Missionary Ridge and Defensive Play, he ran 1-2 in the same race the year before, and he won a third consecutive Classic last year, with Tinners Way.

Frankel has won a Japan Cup, with Pay The Butler in 1988, yet he has never won a Triple Crown or a Breeders’ Cup race--but not because he hasn’t been showing up. He finished 13th with Pendleton Ridge, a maiden, in the 1990 Kentucky Derby. And although he has failed with 23 starters in Breeders’ Cup races, runner-up finishes have been good for $2.4 million in purses, which ranks him eighth on that list.

Before the stability that has come with Juddmonte, owners have come and gone. Frankel had a falling out with Bertrando’s owners and quit training the horse. He doesn’t train for Jerry Moss anymore, either, and another of his major clients, Edmund Gann, has had an off-and-on relationship that’s simpatico for the moment. Laughing, Gann once said: “You give your horses to Frankel and you’ve got to put up with the George Steinbrenner of racing.”

While Frankel was training for Marty Ritt, the late movie director, he ordered Ritt out of a meeting that had been called to discuss the plight of unregistered Mexican nationals on the backstretch.

“How can I say this that it’ll come out right?” Mitchell asked. “If Bobby were more open with his owners, he’d have 500 horses to train.”

Horse Racing Notes

Bobby Frankel will try to win today’s Ramona Handicap with Possibly Perfect, and the trainer has entered Eagle Eyed in Sunday’s $300,000 Eddie Read Handicap. . . . Others running in the Read, a 1 1/8-mile grass race, are Fastness, Northern Spur, Silver Wizard, Earl Of Barking, Urgent Request, Marvin’s Faith and Romarin. . . . W.R. Johnson, one of California’s leading owners for almost 50 years, died Thursday at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Burbank. Johnson, 88, had a history of heart trouble. Mainly the operator of a claiming stable, he raced Page, who won six consecutive races and set two track records for six furlongs at Santa Anita. Johnson once bet $115,000 to show--out of a total pool of $190,000--on a three-horse entry in a six-horse field at Hollywood Park and collected the minimum $2.20 for $2. Survivors include his wife, Ruth; his son, Don Johnson, a lawyer and horse owner; two grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. Services will be at 3 p.m. Tuesday at First Lutheran Church in Glendale. . . . Rest Your Case, a 2-year-old colt trained by Wayne Lukas, broke down during a workout from the gate Friday morning and was destroyed. Rest Your Case, a $160,000 yearling purchase, was owned by Bob and Beverly Lewis.