Hovdey: It’s star time again for Sherman

Art Sherman will be staring at his closet on Saturday trying to remember what he wears to a Grade 1 affair. It’s been since he saddled California Chrome in the Dubai World Cup last March that he had a date for one of these, and while the styles have hardly changed, he’d still like to dress with the appropriate flair.

“I hear it’s going to be 90 degrees or more,” Sherman said Thursday from the balmy side of town at Los Alamitos. “Maybe I’ll go with a Hawaiian shirt.”

Whatever the garb, Sherman and owner George Krikorian will be in tough with their Street Cry filly Star Act in the $300,000 Rodeo Drive Stakes, one of five prime-time events on the opening-day Santa Anita program. The opposition will include Gamely and Diana stakes winner Hard Not to Like; John C. Mabee Stakes winner Elektrum; Del Mar Oaks winner Sharla Rae; and a supporting cast of turf mares who have kept the troops entertained all year long.

With a bunch like that, the Rodeo Drive deserves the stage all to itself. But that’s not how racing departments do business these days. It is more likely that the result will be buried somewhere beneath the performances of Beholder in the Zenyatta Stakes and Songbird in the Chandelier Stakes earlier in the day, with attention also diverted to the 2-year-old colts in the FrontRunner and older males in the Awesome Again.

When the Rodeo Drive was the Yellow Ribbon (not to be confused with the pale remnant of the same name clinging to relevance at Del Mar), there usually was a lot at stake, sometimes even a championship. More often than not, to win it you had to have a grass mare as good as Estrapade, Kilijaro, Kostroma, Megahertz, Wait a While, Fiji, Sabin, or Sangue.

Like everything else run in September, the Rodeo Drive is now referred to as a prep for a Breeders’ Cup event, in this case the Filly and Mare Turf. And while North American stables have held their own against top Europeans in that Breeders’ Cup race, winning 10 of 16, Rodeo Drive/Yellow Ribbon winners are 0-forever.

On paper, Star Act is among the least accomplished in the Rodeo Drive and needs a big leap to compete. But in the three months she has been in the Sherman barn, the trainer has found himself in thrall to her growing charms.

“She’s been training like a monster,” Sherman said. “All of a sudden she turned a corner like she wants to do a lot more, so we’ll see if she’s good enough for these.”

Star Act ran 11 times for Tom Proctor and was always there or thereabouts before finally winning a maiden race at Golden Gate in May. Not long after that, Proctor and Krikorian parted ways, with the owner’s West Coast horses going to Sherman and Tim Yakteen.

“Tom’s a friend,” Sherman said. “He told me he was glad I got some of George’s horses. When I asked him about Star Act, he said she’s a hard-trying mare, which she is.”

In two starts for Sherman, Star Act won an allowance race at Del Mar and then finished a close third in a restricted stakes race there, both at 11 furlongs on firm grass. Gary Stevens will be back aboard for the Rodeo Drive.

“The mile and a quarter is good for her,” Sherman said. “And last time, she might have been best. Gary said he couldn’t get where he wanted to, and when he finally got out, the race was over.”

Krikorian also will be represented in the Rodeo Drive by Famous Alice, another former Proctor runner now trained by Yakteen. She is a daughter of Kitten’s Joy, from the Ken Ramsey nursery, who knocked heads last year with such good ones as Personal Diary and Lexie Lou. Famous Alice even ran in the 2014 version of the Rodeo Drive and finished eighth, beaten four lengths by Emollient.

Krikorian and Yakteen made news in the wrong way earlier in the week when the California-bred filly Big Book was disqualified from winning the Fleet Treat Stakes on July 25 at Del Mar after testing above the allowable level for the common tranquilizer acepromazine. Krikorian, a member of the California Horse Racing Board, had to return the owner’s share of the purse, about $96,000, while Yakteen, who previously had one minor medication violation in 11 years, faces sanctions.

“It was a very unfortunate thing to happen and a real surprise to me,” Krikorian said Thursday from Lexington, Ky., where he was attending the Keeneland sale. “I don’t think there was anything done intentionally. It has been explained to my satisfaction, and Tim has made some changes in barn procedures moving forward to prevent any kind of accident or mistake being made. For that reason, I will continue to have faith in him.”

Krikorian, best known for his national chain of movie emporiums, was asked if racing commissioners who own racehorses should be held to a different standard.

“I think everybody should be held to the same high standards,” Krikorian said. “I would expect that the stewards when they look at this matter would ignore the fact I’m a racing commissioner because that’s what I would do if there were someone else on the board in a similar situation. You pay for your mistakes, and you move forward.”