Golden Gate Fields: Marks Mine enters 2014 on top of game

Marks Mine capped a stellar 2013 campaign with a front-running victory in an allowance sprint last Thursday, opening day of the Golden Gate Fields meeting, and is looking ahead to an even better 2014.

A 3-year-old filly of 2013, Marks Mine won two stakes sprinting against older this past year, when she had five wins, two seconds, and a third in 10 starts while earning $222,924. Ironically, in stakes limited to 3-year-olds she had a pair of seconds and a third.

Marks Mine will run next in the $125,000 Sunshine Millions Filly and Mare Turf Sprint at Santa Anita on Jan. 25. Trainer Steve Specht has chosen that 6 1/2-furlong turf race over the Grade 2 Santa Monica at seven furlongs over the main track the same day.

“The surface doesn’t matter to her,” Specht said.

In her lone turf start, which came during the fall meeting at Golden Gate Fields, Marks Mine set the pace before finishing fourth at a mile behind graded-stakes-winning turf specialist Halo Dolly.

“The only thing that makes me nervous is going over the main track,” Specht said of Santa Anita’s famed hillside turf course, where runners have to cross the main track while turning into the straight.

Specht said horses sometimes have trouble with the switch from turf to dirt to turf, and he believes that led one of his better sprinters, Gig Harbor, to suffer a chipped ankle in a race down the hill.

Santa Anita’s Grade 3, $100,000 Las Flores at six furlongs on March 9 also could be on Marks Mine’s radar, as well as the $100,000 Irish O’Brien for California-breds down the hill there or the $50,000 Camilla Urso at Golden Gate, both March 15.

Specht is running Unusual Meeting in an allowance race here Wednesday and will consider running him in the $250,000 California Cup Turf Classic if he wins.

Jockey race has upside-down look

The first-week jockey standings at Golden Gate have an upside-down feeling to them, with Russell Baze having won only one race from 25 mounts. His mounts have hit the board 60 percent of the time, though, with five seconds and nine thirds.

Alejandro Gomez and Frank Alvarado find themselves at the top of the standings with five wins each. Juan Hernandez and Abel Cedillo are tied for third with four wins each.

Hernandez, who tied for second with Dennis Carr at the fall meet, scored all four of his wins on opening day and then began a seven-day suspension for causing interference in a race Dec. 13. The suspension concludes Saturday. He also has had a pair of thirds from seven mounts on opening day.

Chart caller honored

Longtime Daily Racing Form and Equibase chart caller Darryl Hove was honored by friends and horsemen last month on the final day of the fall meet at Golden Gate Fields. Hove recently was cut back to part time by Equibase.

Hove has worked at the racetrack since 1970 when he was hired by Daily Racing Form . He later became a racing official and has been a chart caller for Equibase since 1991.

Hove remembers being captivated by racing when he saw Silky Sullivan score one of his miraculous come-from-way-way-behind victories.

“If someone had told me in high school that I could spend my life at the racetrack, I would have quit school right then,” he said.

He began his career with in Southern California and came north in 1972. Hove has worked alongside his friend Steve Reed for many years compiling charts for horseplayers to use in their handicapping, and says he will help out Reed when needed.

◗ You can get 2014 off to a good start on New Year’s Day at Golden Gate Fields with a $44,626 carryover in the 50-cent pick five, which begins with the first race. Three lower-level main-track sprints and a pair of turf routes make up the pick five sequence, including one maiden turf race.

◗ Everyone from stewards to management to racing officials chip in to help at the annual Grooms’ Christmas Party at Golden Gate Fields. Among those helping at this past year’s party were jockeys Dennis Carr, Jorge Espitia, Kyle Frey, Ricardo Gonzalez, Cristobal Herrera, Leslie Mawing, and Diego Sanchez. Trainers who helped that night were Rod Cone, Bryson Cooper, Kay Cooper, Tim McCanna, Bill McLean, and Bruce Towell.