Nearly three decades of service in the Del Mar stewards’ booth will come to an end for steward Tom Ward, as will the second Bing Crosby Fall Season with today’s final race.

 

Ward came down from Northern California and started work at the Oak Tree at Santa Anita meeting on September 26, 1986. He has been a fixture in the booth at Santa Anita since then and, except for a few summer seasons in the 1990s and early 2000s when he worked the Northern California fair circuit, at Del Mar.

 

In 2004 Ward was called to work at Del Mar when steward Dave Samuel had health problems, and has missed only the 2014 season, for the fair circuit, since then. After the meeting ends, Ward will take on a year-round assignment at Los Alamitos in Orange County for both the Quarter Horse and Thoroughbred meetings there.

 

Asked for his thoughts about Del Mar, Ward said: “It’s an idyllic setting, basically a stone’s throw away from the blue Pacific. But there’s a lot of pressure in the summer season. The crowds are bigger. A lot of the owners are here and they put more pressure on trainers, who put it on riders, who put it on stewards. It’s all part of the food chain.”

 

Ward, 69, started as a racing official in 1967, got his first assignment as a steward in 1971 for a harness meet in Sacramento, and graduated to Thoroughbreds in 1974. He got into racing through his father, Doc Ward, a podiatrist turned racehorse owner and official who served as the assistant general manager at Bay Meadows and Golden Gate Fields for a time in the mid-20^th century.

 

“As you’d expect, the game has changed a lot since I first started,” Ward said. “Back in the old days people accepted a stewards’ decision. Nowadays, that’s not necessarily so. But then, our society has changed and people don’t accept authority like they used to.”

 

Ward’s expressed general philosophy is “Treat someone the way you’d like to be treated.” His primary thought concerning his profession: “I have to be 110 percent certain that the incident cost a horse a placing. I don’t want to disqualify horses and reach into the public’s pocket unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

 

Having worked so many meetings, and every Breeders’ Cup in Southern California since 1986, Ward and his colleagues in the booth have had to make some major calls that invite controversy.

 

In the 1994 Santa Anita Handicap, The Wicked North – who would win three Grade I stakes and be voted an Eclipse Award in the Older Horse category – crossed under the wire first but was disqualified to fourth and Stuka moved up to the win.

 

“That engendered more controversy than any other race,” Ward concedes.

 

More recently, two incidents that prompted inquiries but did not result in disqualifications created storms in mainstream, and especially social, media.

 

In 2011 the number for Game On Dude, ridden by Chantal Sutherland, stayed up after trainer Bob Baffert did some personal lobbying on television and on the phone to the  booth.

 

“That won’t happen again,” Ward said.

 

In the 2014 Breeders’ Cup Classic, a bumping incident out of the gate between Bayern and Shared Belief didn’t  result in Bayern being disqualified as many experts contended should have been done.

 

“The three stewards didn’t think it was that big of a deal,” Ward said. “It was just because of the stage it played out on…That’s all water under the bridge. Like a major league umpire, you make the call and move on.”

 

 

 

Craig Stephen, agent for Santiago Gonzalez, said Saturday that it was “either the flu or possibly food poisoning” that forced the Venezulan-born jockey to take off six mounts in a return from a three-day suspension.

 

“It’s a shame, because we were hoping to come back and make a run at the riding title,” Stephen said. “Hopefully he’ll be back (Sunday) to ride his favorite horse, Prize Exhibit."

 

As of late Sunday morning, Gonzalez was scheduled to ride. Prize Exhibit (15-1) in the featured Grade I $300,000 Matriarch for trainer Jim Cassidy is the fourth of his five mounts on the nine-race card.

 

Rafael Bejarano was winless on six mounts Saturday and holds a four-win advantage (20-16) over Gonzalez entering the season finale.

 

The lineup for Bejarano: Artistic Charm (2^nd, 7-2), Unusually Green (4^th, 3-1), Imperious One (6^th, 8-1), Hard Gale (7^th, 3-1), Crowley’s Law (8^th, 6-1) and Rim Nick (9^th, 6-1).

 

The lineup for Gonzalez: Sundar Drums (1^st, 4-1), Vanlose Stairway (2^nd, 4-1),  Life’s Journey (4^th, 15-1), Prize Exhibit (8^th, 15-1) and Inhibition (9^th, 20-1).

 

 

Doug O’Neill enters the final day of the meeting with a one-win margin (14-13) over Phil D’Amato and Peter Miller. O’Neill has seven scheduled starters, D’Amato three and defending Crosby Season champion Miller five.

 

The lineup for O’Neill: Cool Green (1^st, 5-2), Street Mavin (4^th, 12-1), It Is Living Water (4^th, 6-1), Ike Walker (5^th, 3-1), Frank Conversation (6^th, 10-1), Imperious One (6^th,  8-1) and Rim Nick (9^th, 6-1).

 

The lineup for D’Amato: Grazenette (1^st, 10-1), Hard Gale (7^th, 3-1) and Wild Deb (9^th, 12-1).

 

The lineup for Miller: Shake Things Up (4^th, 20-1),  Triple Crown (7^th, 5-1), Eric the Trojan (7^th, 7-1), Crowley’s Law (8^th, 6-1) and Trump Diesel (9^th, 8-1). 

            

 

 

 

 

 

 

Del Mar Thoroughbred Club President and CEO Joe Harper recalls meeting Bing Crosby in 1977, Harper’s first year with the DMTC and the year of Crosby’s death.

 

“He was in the turf club. I went up and introduced myself and we talked about all the changes we had made,” Harper said. “We had redone the turf  club and put in a new clubhouse floor and he said it had come a long ways since he was here. I reminded him that we were in a movie together and I got more screen time than he did. It was The Greatest Show On Earth (directed by Harper’s grandfather Cecil B. DeMille). There was a pan shot of the crowd looking up at the aerial acts. The camera panned right past Bing Crosby and Bob Hope and stopped on another group of people and one of them was me. I told Bing ‘You were only on screen for one second and I was on for about 10.’”

 

 

 

Thoroughbred racing in Southern California resumes Thursday, December 3, with the start of the second Winter Meet at Los Alamitos in Cypress.

The 12-day season will continue through Sunday, Dec. 20 with racing conducted on a Thursday-Sunday basis. Post time will be 12:30 p.m.

Highlighting the Winter season are a pair of Grade I races for 2-year-olds. The $300,000-guaranteed Starlet for fillies will be run Saturday, Dec. 12 while the $350,000-guaranteed Los Alamitos Futurity will be run a week later (Saturday, Dec. 19).

Both races were run for the first time at Los Alamitos last year after being offered previously at the now-closed Hollywood Park (1981-2013).

Take Charge Brandi wrapped up her Eclipse Award as the champion 2-year-old filly with a victory in the 2014 Starlet for Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas.

Dortmund, winner of Saturday’s Grade III $150,000 Native Diver Handicap at Del Mar,  edged eventual Kentucky Derby runner-up Firing Line and Mr. Z in last year’s Futurity, giving Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert his record seventh victory in the prestigious race.

 

 

CLOSERS – Racing secretary David Jerkens estimates the number for average field size for the meeting will be around 8.1. The actual figure will depend on any late scratches on Sunday’s card and cannot be determined until the final race is run. The inaugural Bing Crosby meeting in 2014 had an average field size of 8.3. “We’re more interested in the quality and the competitiveness of the fields than the quantity, because that’s what defines us,” Jerkens said. “The (quantity) numbers picked up after the first week and we thank the horseman for their support.” … The track will remain open for training through Wednesday, December 2 … Best wishes to Palma Possemato, retiring after more than a decade of service with the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club as Public Relations and VIP Concierge. Laryngitis will prevent a planned “Sing With Bing” performance, but she will be honored before the fifth race today in the winner’s circle and we’ll look forward to hearing her singing voice again  at future meetings … Thanks to all Stable Notes readers. We’ll be back, hopefully, for the Summer Meeting, July 15-September 5, 2016 and the Bing Crosby Fall Meeting November 10-December 4.

 

 

Contact: Dan Smith 858-792-4226/Hank Wesch 858-755-1141 ext. 3793