OAK TREE : New Turf Fails Opening Test at Santa Anita

If Ron Ellis had his way, and he says his opinion is shared by many other trainers, Santa Anita wouldn’t use its new $2.3-million turf course much during the Oak Tree meeting.

Long one of this circuit’s high-percentage trainers, Ellis was speaking right after his Denim Yenem had won Oak Tree’s opening-day feature, the $105,400 Autumn Days Handicap, the first race run on the new sod.

“I’d like to see them give it time to grow,” Ellis said after Denim Yenem won for the second time in as many starts since he took over her training.

“A lot of [trainers] feel the same way I do. I’d like to see them save it and maybe just run the stakes races [on turf].”

After winning the CERF Stakes by 6 1/2 lengths on the Del Mar main track, Denim Yenem, the 7-5 favorite Wednesday, had to work much harder in the Autumn Days.

Rated just off the pace set by Klassy Kim and Salta’s Pride, the 3-year-old Ogygian filly got the lead early in the stretch, then held off Miss L Attack to win by a head in 1:14 4/5 under Chris McCarron.

How much the turf course will be used during the 32-day Oak Tree meeting remains to be seen, but director of racing Tom Robbins, racing secretary Tom Knust and Oak Tree Executive Vice President Sherwood Chillingworth were among a group of eight walking and checking out the course after the races Wednesday.

One grass race is scheduled for today and Friday, but at least one rider wasn’t impressed with the layout.

“It’s the same old . . . they just took out of there,” said Corey Nakatani, who rode Miss L Attack in the Autumn Days. “My mare was bobbling because there wasn’t much to get a hold of. It was like trying to run with no cleats.

“My mare ran great. [Denim Yenem] had just enough left to hold her off. If she had gotten a hold of the grass like I had thought she might, she was going to get there. It was hard to make up ground because clods were coming up.”

Any judgment on the turf course is premature because the final grass was laid the first week of July and it is a cool-season sod. The continued hot weather hasn’t helped its growth.

“The grass course is just too new,” said Eddie Delahoussaye, who rode third-place finisher Jacodra’s Devil. “Evidently, they put sand in to help the drainage and I can understand that.

“But the roots don’t seem to be down there yet. It was kicking up pretty good. I mean, it looks good and it doesn’t feel bad, but if a horse doesn’t like it, he’s not going to run well on it because they get to struggling.”

McCarron said Denim Yenem, who now has won half of her 10 starts for owners Jan, Mace and Samantha Siegel, handled the grass fine and he was surprised the final time was so slow because the course felt “very firm.” This was the slowest Autumn Days run on turf since Love Smitten went 1:15 in the second division of the race in 1985.

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In a ruling issued Saturday by Del Mar stewards Dennis Nevin, George Slender and Dave Samuel, trainer Vladimir Cerin was exonerated on all charges regarding the six positive drug tests of his horses during the Hollywood Park meeting.

Five of Cerin’s horses--one of them twice--tested positive for caffeine, which is a prohibited substance.

After some 40 hours of testimony, Cerin was cleared when it was determined that the positives resulted from Cytomax, an herbal supplement that Cerin had been feeding to his horses for well over two years.

The trainer had given his horses the apple and citrus flavors of the product, but while he was on vacation, his assistant trainer purchased orange-flavored Cytomax. It was determined that although the label didn’t properly disclose the fact, the product contained caffeine. Cerin didn’t learn of the flavor change or the source of the caffeine until after all of the horses who tested positive had run.

According to Darrell Vienna, the trainer and practicing attorney who represented Cerin, the stewards’ decision was based on the application of the California Horse Racing Board’s new administrative policy for equine drug testing.

“The new policy allows the stewards to exonerate a trainer upon presentation of evidence demonstrating that the positive test resulted from accidental or environmental contamination which couldn’t be prevented with the exercise of reasonable precautions,” Vienna said. “No one offered any evidence that [Cerin] didn’t act reasonably.

“In the past, a trainer could rarely, if ever, hope to overcome the presumption of negligence which attaches upon the finding of a post-race positive, no matter how compelling the evidence that the positive had resulted from circumstances beyond his control.

“By issuing the new policy, the Racing Board has acted to ensure that the days of punishment without culpability are gone forever.”

The horses involved were disqualified when the original ruling came out and those disqualifications will stand. However, Gregg Anderson, who owns Palmdale, who tested positive twice, and Mitch Brown, the part-owner of Predicted Glory, plan to appeal those disqualifications.

Horse Racing Notes

The opening-day attendance was 32,634, compared to 33,511 a year ago. . . . Alex Solis and Corey Nakatani won twice Wednesday. . . . Future Quest, the upset winner of the Del Mar Futurity on Sept. 13, will stay in California and run in the $200,000 Norfolk Stakes on Sunday. Trainer Ron McAnally and owner Verne Winchell had considered running Future Quest in the $300,000 Mathis Brothers Remington Futurity on Oct. 22.