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Byline: KEVIN MODESTI Horse Racing

EAGLE ROCK - To know the boss at the Eagle Rock Italian Bakery on Colorado Boulevard is a racing man, a lunchtime visitor needs only to look high on the deli's back wall, above the wooden shelves holding the broad beans, marinated garlic and pepperoncini.

There hang framed photographs of Nick Cafarchia's best horses, Road to Slew and Rare Charmer, carrying the breeder-owner's green-and-yellow-diamond silks to important victories at Southern California thoroughbred tracks.

Some of the photos are signed by the winning jockeys, including Chris McCarron, who adds, ``Congratulations. And thanks.''

The store could be receiving a new decoration soon. Cafarchia's colt Anziyan Royalty is a contender in Saturday's California Cup Classic, the main event of the 10-race Cal Cup program at Santa Anita Park in Arcadia. Ridden by David Flores for trainer Craig Dollase, the 4-year-old colt seems to have regained his form after poor performances in major races at Santa Anita last winter.

Anziyan Royalty wasn't helped when he drew the far outside post position in the Cal Cup Classic field of 10 horses that includes 5-2 morning-line favorite Excess Summer, defending champion Tizbud and 2002 winner Calkins Road.

``I don't like the post very well,'' Dollase said, ``but we'll try to make the most of it. He's normally a front-running horse. We'll sit down and restrategize.''

Cafarchia is optimistic.

``He had a super work(out) the other day,'' Cafarchia said. ``The horse is doing good. Let's hope he gets lucky.''

Cafarchia, 65, a Pasadena resident, was a baker in his native Bari, Italy, and moved to the United States in 1959.

He paid his first visit to a racetrack about 20 years ago at Hollywood Park. He made a neophyte's hunch bet. You can guess where this story is going.

``Usually, the first time you go, you win. That's what everybody does,'' Cafarchia said at Santa Anita this week, squinting through wire-framed glasses in the morning sun at Clockers' Corner. ``There was a horse with a name something like `Baker' ...''

It was a long shot. It won, of course. Cafarchia was hooked.

A couple of years later, he had his own box seats at the local tracks and was part of a four-way partnership claiming a horse with trainer Sandy Shulman.

``Once you get in, you don't want to get out. You know that,'' Cafarchia said. ``It's like people who come and bet - once it gets in your blood it can't get out.''

The deli man's stable is relatively small, with seven horses in training these days, but he breeds his own and that makes his successes all the more rewarding. He has won graded stakes as well as the Cal Cup Mile in 1990 with Road to Slew, ridden by Laffit Pincay for Dollase.

Anziyan Royalty, 6-1 on the Cal Cup Classic morning line, is the product of the mating of Anziyan and Cafarchia's mare Shy Solana. A winner in five of 12 starts and $151,400 in purses, the colt scored his most impressive victory in December 2003 at Hollywood Park when he and jockey Alex Solis led from the start and romped by eight lengths in a bottom-level allowance race.

Impressed by that effort, bettors sent Anziyan Royalty off at 4-1 odds in the San Fernando Stakes at Santa Anita in January, only to watch him and rider Jose Valdivia Jr. straggle home eighth after traffic trouble knocked him back early.

After Anziyan Royalty and Valdivia suffered from a pace duel in the Strub Stakes and finished 11th and last in February, he was given a nearly five-month layoff.

A comeback victory with Victor Espinoza in an optional claiming race at Hollywood Park in July was followed by a fifth-place finish with Valdivia in an optional claimer on turf at Del Mar in August and a second-place finish with David Nuesch behind winner Verkade in the Phil D. Shepherd at Fairplex Park in September.

Cafarchia is hopeful that Anziyan Royalty will one day be a winner in ``open company'' stakes. First things first, though. Saturday's Cal Cup races are restricted to California-bred horses. If that runner-up effort at Fairplex has set up Anziyan Royalty for his best, he can beat the Cal Cup Classic favorites.

There's room for him on the Eagle Rock Italian Bakery wall if he does.

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- Kevin Modesti