Stakes Wins, Daughter’s Recovery Ease Mandella Trainer Scores Big Victories At Track After Ohio Car Crash Upsets His Life
What could have been the worst week of Richard Mandella’s life has turned out all right.
While his 18-year-old daughter, Andrea, continued to recover from an automobile accident in Ohio, Mandella won both weekend stakes at Hollywood Park and clinched the track’s training title.
A seven-length victory by Refinado Tom and jockey Gary Stevens in the $100,000 Native Diver Handicap on a windy, chilly Sunday was Mandella’s sixth in a row and 14th of the Hollywood winter season, which ends today.
Mandella flew home Saturday night from Columbus, Ohio, where Andrea, a freshman at Kenyon College, had 8-1/2 hours of surgery Wednesday to repair back injuries suffered in a car accident the day before.
“She began rehab (Saturday), and they’re just amazed at how much she could do,” said Mandella, who said Andrea crushed a lumbar vertebra but suffered no nerve damage, and was already walking.
Hollywood Park chairman R.D. Hubbard, who owns horses trained by Mandella, has offered his private jet to bring Andrea home.
Andrea is a familiar face at the Southern California tracks, although she has never worked in the sport, unlike her brother Gary, who is one of his father’s assistants. “She’s very popular in the Turf Club,” Richard said. “That’s her interest (in racing).”
In the winner’s circle Sunday, Mandella looked tired.
“You hear this, but I guess you don’t appreciate it until it happens to you,” he said. “I don’t think anybody loves this game more than I do or has put more of his life into it, but when something like this happens, you realize it’s just a game.
“The biggest victory of my life was having her come out of surgery all right.”
Andrea would have enjoyed watching the Native Diver, a race her father won before with Menswear (1983), Hopeful Word (‘86), Best Pal (‘94) and Gentlemen (‘96). Four-year-old Refinado Tom, an Argentine Triple Crown winner who has lost his three earlier races in California, took the lead on the far turn and won easily in 1:47 4/5 for 1-1/8 miles.
The margin was two lengths shorter and the time was 2 3/5 seconds slower than Gentlemen’s track record last year, which signaled that Argentine horse’s development into the top U.S. thoroughbred. Eight of the past nine winners of the Grade III Native Diver also won Grade I stakes.
“There’s a lot to live up to,” said Stevens, who also rides Gentlemen, “but you know, when he (Refinado Tom) came to the U.S., his reputation was a little stronger than what Gentlemen’s was.”
Refinado Tom, a son of Shy Tom, paid $2.20. Steel Ruhlr was second, Boggle third, favored Kukulcan fifth.
Mandella, whose Stop Traffic won the Safely Kept Handicap on Saturday, came back with two winners Sunday.
Racing will resume Friday when Santa Anita opens its 85-day winter meet.