Oak Tree Meeting Will Get Off to a Fast Start : Horse racing: The season will begin today with a $75,000 feature, the first of seven graded stakes scheduled in 11 days.

When the Breeders’ Cup was introduced in 1984, the Oak Tree Racing Assn. was forced to pay attention.

The seven annual Breeders’ Cup races, worth $10 million, would be run in the fall, the same time as the traditional Oak Tree season at Santa Anita.

Ever since, Oak Tree has had to structure its stakes schedule accordingly. The juggling has apparently been successful, because seven Breeders’ Cup winners ran their prep races at Santa Anita. Only two tracks--Belmont Park and Keeneland--have produced more. Thirteen Breeders’ Cup winners prepped at Belmont and nine at Keeneland.

This year, with the Breeders’ Cup scheduled for Gulfstream Park on Oct. 31, Oak Tree has scheduled seven of the season’s 11 graded stakes during the meeting’s first 11 racing days.

The 27-day season will begin today with the $75,000 Autumn Days Handicap. The stakes will increase this weekend with the $200,000 Oak Leaf Stakes for 2-year-old fillies and the $400,000 Oak Tree Invitational for grass horses on Saturday; the $200,000 Norfolk Stakes for 2-year-old colts and the $200,000 Goodwood Handicap for older dirt horses on Sunday; and the $100,000 Ancient Title Breeders’ Cup Handicap for sprinters on Monday.

Three horses--Chief’s Crown in 1984, Capote in 1986 and Success Express in 1987--came out of the Norfolk and won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile. This time, the Norfolk horses, including Del Mar Futurity winner River Special, will be trying to earn a trip to Gulfstream, where a Santa Anita-based horse, Gilded Time, probably will be favored in the Breeders’ Cup. The undefeated Gilded Time most recently won the Arlington-Washington Futurity.

The Oak Tree Invitational, a 1 1/2-mile race, was won by Nasr El Arab in 1988, but the favorite and second-place finisher in that race, Great Communicator, rebounded a month later to win the Breeders’ Cup Turf at Churchill Downs.

This time, trainer Bobby Frankel might run Defensive Play on the grass in order to get him ready for the Breeders’ Cup Classic, which is 1 1/4 miles on dirt. In Sunday’s Goodwood, 1 1/8 miles on dirt, Frankel might run Marquetry to prepare him for the Breeders’ Cup Mile, which is on grass.

Heading into October, Frankel was third on the national trainers’ money list with $5 million in purses. At Del Mar last summer he won only four races, yet the purse total for the barn was $1.2 million. One of the victories was by Marquetry, in the Eddie Read Handicap.

In 1986, when the Breeders’ Cup was run at Santa Anita, Skywalker benefited from a grass-to-dirt strategy. A month before the Breeders’ Cup, trainer Michael Whittingham ran Skywalker on grass for the first time and he finished third, beaten by less than a length, in Oak Tree’s Koester Handicap. Back on dirt for the Classic, Skywalker withstood a late run by Turkoman and won the $1.35-million prize.

The second half of the season will be highlighted by the third California Cup day--nine races worth $1 million for state-breds on Nov. 7--and the $400,000 Yellow Ribbon Stakes for fillies and mares on grass Nov. 8. The meeting will end Nov. 9 with the $150,000 Carleton F. Burke Handicap.

Frankel has Polemic, a 4-year-old filly headed for the Yellow Ribbon. Polemic won her first stakes victory in Saturday’s $150,000 California Jockey Club Handicap at Bay Meadows.

Frankel already has Quest For Fame, a disappointing sixth in the Arlington Million, headed for the Breeders’ Cup Turf.

The career of a top grass mare, Miss Alleged, ended Saturday when she suffered a tendon injury during training at Santa Anita. Miss Alleged came from France last year and won the Breeders’ Cup Turf and the Hollywood Turf Cup, and was voted the Eclipse Award for best female on grass.

Horse Racing Notes

Oak Tree racing will be conducted Wednesday through Sunday, plus Monday cards next week and on Nov. 9. First post is 1 p.m. . . . Stewards for the meet are Ingrid Fermin, David Samuel and Thomas Ward. . . . Bel’s Starlet, winner of the Autumn Days Handicap last year, will become the first back-to-back winner of the stake if she wins today. The 5-year-old mare will be ridden by Kent Desormeaux, who led the Oak Tree standings a year ago with 46 victories. The defending training champion is Gary Jones, whose 16 victories last year were the most by an Oak Tree trainer since Mel Stute’s 17 in 1985. . . . Dr Devious, sixth in Sunday’s Arc de Triomphe in Paris, suffered cuts on a hind leg and will skip the Breeders’ Cup Turf. . . . . By a 4-1 vote, the Texas Racing Commission has awarded an operating license for the Dallas-Ft. Worth area to the Lone Star Jockey Club, a group of Texas investors. One of the three unsuccessful applicants is a group that included R.D. Hubbard and the Hollywood Park shareholders.

Prepping for Breeders’ Cup

The seven Breeders’ Cup winners who ran their prep races during the Oak Tree meeting at Santa Anita:

Year Horse Oak Tree Race Finish Breeders’ Cup Race 1984 Chief’s Crown Norfolk 1st Juvenile 1986 Capote Norfolk 1st Juvenile 1986 Skywalker Koester 3rd Classic 1987 Success Express Norfolk 4th Juvenile 1987 Ferdinand Goodwood 1st Classic 1988 Great Communicator Oak Tree 2nd Turf 1991 Pleasant Stage Oak Leaf 1st Juvenile Fillies