BackTrack: Best Pal Closes 6-Year-Old Season in Style

Let's play this like a sweet dream. Some flash from a long-forgotten past. Take one old gelding, his faced scarred, his legs dotted with pin-fire pricks, his mind hard and full of business. Put him on display on the right day at the right time, light the fuse, and stand back. 

The result was Best Pal at his very best, swooping around the turn, wrapping up a race before the eighth pole came into view. This was vintage stuff, on the afternoon of Dec. 4 at Hollywood Park, when the Grand Old Horse of California won the Native Diver Handicap by four lengths as if time stood still and did not mean a thing. 

Never mind that this was a grade 3 event worth $109,000. The winner's prize of $64,000 fell like a hollow clank in the well of Best Pal's $5-million-plus earnings, a figure in sight of both John Henry and Alysheba. 

But we know those numbers mean nothing if they are not supported by constant excellence at the top of the game. Alysheba racked up his total in just three years. John Henry was on fire until the end, at age 9. The rest are far behind. 

Now we have Best Pal, approaching his 7-year-old season with a grim determination to continue winning against all odds. The Native Diver, a nine-furlong exercise over a fast main track, was the kind of race that tends to render all debate moot until the winner steps up against the next generation of 4-year-olds and puts his considerable reputation on the line. 

The race was a setup for Best Pal, despite the fact that these days he has no early speed, an echo of the latter-day John Henry. But what did it matter?

While Royal Chariot and Newton's Law were hustling through the early going, Best Pal and Chris McCarron were last, hardly concerned with the game. Then, at the half-mile marker, McCarron moved his hands and Best Pal clicked into gear. There were no decisions to make—McCarron stayed wide to avoid grief—as Best Pal began to level off and gobble up every horse in the field. 

Literally five wide into the stretch, Best Pal was oblivious to the loss of ground as he cornered like a pro and set his sights on the wire. To the inside, Tossofthecoin was making a game try, while Royal Chariot tried to hang on. But Best Pal was in another race—another class—and by the end he had won by four lengths, gliding. 

The victory, though old hat to John and Betty Mabee, was new stuff for Richard Mandella, who took over from Gary Jones this year and had only managed an overnight stakes win with the gelding back in July. 

"I've gotten to know him pretty well and you just don't mess around with him," Mandella said.

Since that first score, Mandella has had bad luck in three Best Pal appearances. The old guy couldn't quite catch Tinners Way in the Pacific Classic (G1). He was third in the Kentucky Cup Classic, and then fifth in the Breeders' Cup Classic (G1). But at no time did the trainer feel he was seeing the best of Best Pal. 

"You've got to give them a little confidence and get their game back together," Mandella said. "I thought this was a good chance to put him in a spot where he'd be the big fish."

Best Pal has maybe lost a step, but that still puts him lengths ahead of most competition. These days, he is the closest thing California has to a racing institution. And in that sense, it is fitting that he added the Native Diver to his list of accomplishments. 

After all, Native Diver, whose remains are laid to rest in the Hollywood Park paddock and whose name is in the Hall of Fame, is the last great California gelding to transcend local stardom and become a nationally recognized hero. 

"Winning with him," said Mandella of Best Pal, "is worth more than money."