Hovdey: Will four be enough in the Gold Cup?

If you can’t have the big horse in a $500,000 event like the Gold Cup at Santa Anita, you might as well swarm the race with numbers, which is what trainer Peter Miller will be doing on Saturday when he sends out four of the 11 older runners entered in the 1 1/4-mile, main-track event topped by the Californian Stakes one-two finishers, Catch a Flight and Moreno.

The last time a trainer sent out a comparable herd in the Gold Cup was in the 1997 running at Hollywood Park, where Richard Mandella finished first, second, third, fifth, and sixth with Gentlemen, Siphon, Sandpit, Region, and Talloires. Marlin, the only other horse in the field, was fourth.

Mandella has only Catch a Flight to deal with this time around, while Miller and his assistant, Stephanie Korder, will have their hands full. Their squad is led by Finnegans Wake, the winner of four graded stakes on grass since December, and Big Cazanova, who ran a monster race in winning the Native Diver on Polytrack at Del Mar last fall. Lideris is a Group 1 winner in Peru who has yet to hit the board in four California stakes starts, and Poshky is a 5-year-old California-bred who has not won since last July.

“I’m a little OCD,” Miller said Wednesday at his San Luis Rey Downs stable. “I guess that means I have to do everything the same way every time I saddle a horse, and I’ve been warned for going too slow. We’ll save some time by putting on the blinkers and tongue ties at the barn before we lead them over. But I’ll still give them a turn before putting on the overgirth, stretch their legs, and pick all their feet myself. That’s just me.”

Of the four, only Finnegans Wake figures to be in the single digits on the tote.

“I was thinking about the San Juan Capistrano for Lideris,” Miller said, referring to Sunday’s closing-day feature. “Then Joe Talamo worked him on the grass the other day and said he didn’t seem to like it at all, which means I might be the only guy with a son of Mizzen Mast out of a Dynaformer mare who can’t run on turf.

“Poshky lost a ton of ground last time out in the Tiznow, so we’re hoping his new jock, Flavien Prat, can save some ground and then come running,” Miller said. “As for Big Cazanova, he needed his last race when he ran with Moreno early in the Californian. But that’s his style. Everybody knows where he’ll be, and one of these days, he’s going to just keep going.”

Corey Nakatani, who won a pair with Big Cazanova last year, will be back on board for the Gold Cup.

As for Finnegans Wake, he is a bona fide turf ace who repeated his California form of the winter to win the Woodford Reserve Turf Classic at Churchill Downs on Derby Day. He tried for an encore in the Manhattan Stakes at Belmont Park but ended up handcuffed in traffic and settled for fourth, beaten three lengths in a race that was better than it looked.

“Essentially, he only ran about a sixteenth of a mile that day,” Miller said. “He was jumping out of his skin before that race and came out the same way, so I really don’t want to wait until the Eddie Read at Del Mar to run him back at a mile and an eighth on the grass, when I think a mile and a quarter is his best distance.

“Moreno is a very nice horse, and I’ve got a lot of respect for Catch a Flight,” Miller added. “But let’s face it: Without Shared Belief, California Chrome, or Bayern to contend with, I think the older horses on the dirt out here are lighter than the older division on the grass.”

Finnegans Wake, owned by Gary Hartunian’s Rockingham Ranch and the Donegal Racing partnership, is a 6-year-old son of Powerscourt who has run 25 of his 30 starts on grass. He trains on dirt all the time at San Luis Rey, but the last time he tried the loam for real, he finished eighth in the Clark Handicap at Churchill Downs in November 2013.

“They say you want a daisy-cutter stride for a grass horse, then you’ll hear someone rave about a horse with a high knee action that would be perfect for the turf,” Miller said. “Well, which is it? As far as I’m concerned, until proven otherwise, a good horse should be able to handle anything.”

Such a subversive attitude was instilled in Miller during his first serious racetrack job at Hollywood Park as a swing groom for Charlie Whittingham, the master of moving horses back and forth between dirt and turf to win rich pots. Whittingham didn’t exactly share his secrets with the young grunt, but Miller only had to soak up Whittingham’s work with the multilayered Greinton, a French import who won the 1985 Hollywood Gold Cup in a record 1:58.40 over the nine-furlong main-track configuration that stood until the place was torn down.

Whether the stretch-running Finnegans Wake is a good enough horse to spot Moreno and Catch a Flight an early advantage remains to be seen. Miller has secured Mike Smith to ride, and that never hurts your chances.

“I’m going to tell Mike to ride him just like he rode Zenyatta,” Miller said, “only without quite as much confidence.”