Error leaves a top choice out of race
DEL MAR, Calif. - Eight is not enough.
Eight horses were entered in Wednesday's $100,000 Generous Portion Stakes, for 2-year-old California-bred fillies at Del Mar, but there was supposed to be a ninth. Confusion over an entry resulted in one of the potential top choices - Icantgoforthat - being left out of the race, making the assignment that much easier for Whitewinesipper, who might qualify for trainer Cliff Sise as the one who didn't get away.
Whitewinesipper, like the celebrated Lil Miss Hollywood, was entered in a maiden-claiming race her first time out. Both won, but unlike Lil Miss Hollywood, Whitewinesipper remained in Sise's care after the race. With an outside post and sharp early speed, she is a deserving favorite in the six-furlong Generous Portion.
Whitewinesipper earned a 77 Beyer Speed Figure, winning by eight lengths at Hollywood Park on June 28. She was entered in the CTBA Stakes here on July 20 but was scratched because Sise had another runner, Asian Adventure, and decided to go it alone with her. She won, and Sise still had a fresh horse for this race.
"She's been training very well," Sise said Monday. "She's not the prettiest filly. She's little and crooked. I didn't think anybody would look at her for $40,000. I expected her to win, but I didn't think she'd win by that much."
Other prominent horses in the Generous Portion include maiden winners Frankie Eyelashes and Toby's Baby, and CTBA runner-up Believe In Slew.
The race was surrounded in controversy, however, because of a mixup over the entry of Icantgoforthat, a Bob Baffert-trained filly who was a 4 1/2-length winner here July 20. Jim Barnes, Baffert's assistant, entered the horse in the race early Sunday morning, with David Flores named to ride. But at the draw later on Sunday, her card was not pulled.
Later in the day, when the overnight came out and Barnes and Baffert did not see Icantgoforthat entered in the race, they started making calls, including to the stewards, to ask if the race could be re-drawn.
According to George Slender, one of the stewards, they were not made aware of the situation until late Sunday afternoon, after the overnight was published. "Once the overnight's out, you're dead," Slender said.
Tom Robbins, Del Mar's racing secretary, said that Barnes did submit the entry but it apparently was not properly transferred by the racing office to its computer system. "The horse should have been in the race," Robbins said. "Everybody feels sick about it."
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