DETOUR PUTS SURF CAT IN PACIFIC CLASSIC.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI Horse Racing 

Surf Cat, the young horse to watch in Sunday's Pacific Classic, landed in Del Mar's million-dollar race after an all-too-modern travel glitch.

Trainer Bruce Headley wanted to send Surf Cat to the Haskell Invitational earlier this month at Monmouth Park in New Jersey. The colt recently had thrashed fellow 3-year-olds in the Swaps Stakes at Hollywood Park. The Haskell represented a short step up to face eastern 3-year-olds in a prestigious race.

The plan snagged when the commercial shipping company transporting Surf Cat refused to let groom Juan Soto fly because he doesn't have a passport. Headley said it was explained to him as a post-9/11 aviation-security thing.

Headley decided not to pack his prized horse off to the other side of the country without his trusted handler.

``Bleeping Bin Laden,'' Headley said this week, ``if you want to put it in a few words.''

As an alternative to the Grade I, $1 million Haskell against 3-year-olds, Surf Cat finds himself entered in the Grade I, $1 million Pacific Classic against 3-year-olds-and-up, marking his first attempt to defeat older horses.

The switch could be a blessing in disguise, because Surf Cat might be good enough to win, and a victory would accelerate his rise among contenders for the $4 million Breeders' Cup Classic on Oct. 29 at Belmont Park.

``Everything has gone perfect (in training),'' Headley said Thursday morning on the phone from his barn at Del Mar in San Diego County. ``The only thing now is whether he can take on the big boys. He's like a bull stag. That's a word for when they're maturing into bulls. That's when they try to take over the herd.''

The ``herd,'' in the case of the 15th Pacific Classic, is a field of 12 horses in which Surf Cat is the lone 3-year-old. Lava Man, the Hollywood Gold Cup winner last month, is the morning-line favorite, and Surf Cat is second choice in the projected odds.

They'll line up this way, from the rail out: Polish Times (Kent Desormeaux riding), 50-1; Choctaw Nation (Victor Espinoza), 6-1; Borrego (Garrett Gomez), 12-1; Lava Man (Pat Valenzuela), 9-5; Surf Cat (Alex Solis), 3-1; Super Frolic (Jason Lumpkins), 30-1; Musique Toujours (Jorge Chavez), 20-1; Congrats (Tyler Baze), 10-1; Island Fashion (Corey Nakatani), 20-1; Oceanus (Jose Valdivia Jr.), 30-1; Ace Blue (David Flores), 30-1; and Perfect Drift (Mark Guidry), 4-1.

Surf Cat carries 117 pounds, the mare Island Fashion 119 and older males 124 in the 1 1/4-mile race scheduled for 4:45 p.m. (ESPN) as the eighth race on a 1 p.m. card.

A son of Sir Cat, whom Headley picked out of a Lexington, Ky., yearling auction for $5,000, Surf Cat began his racing career at Santa Anita in January, too late to take a run at the Triple Crown events. After he and jockey Alex Solis defeated Dover Dere by five lengths in the 1 1/8-mile Swaps, Surf Cat had three wins to go with three seconds in a six-race career and earnings of nearly $300,000.

The Kentucky-bred colt is owned by Aase Headley - Bruce's wife - and Marsha Naify.

He appears poised to follow in the hoofprints of 3-year-old Pacific Classic winners Best Pal (1991, the event's inaugural year), General Challenge (1999) and Came Home (2002), or at least runner-up Tiznow (2000, en route to a Horse of the Year title).

Young horses have fared so well in the Pacific Classic that a $2 win bet on each of the eight 3-year-olds who have run in the race would have netted a 59 percent profit.

For Headley, the 71-year-old Arcadia resident who trained 2000 sprint champion Kona Gold, getting Surf Cat cheap is testament to a sharp eye developed in his early days breaking and exercising young horses at places like Suzy Q Ranch in La Puente and the old Devonshire Downs in Northridge.

``I'd listen to trainers say, 'This is the best one (of a group),' or 'These are the best two,' and I learned from them and developed a great eye,'' Headley said. ``I'd rather have a great eye than a lot of money (to spend on horses). But having both is better.''

Headley was immediately impressed by Surf Cat's graceful walk at that February 2003 auction.

``I had Variety Road, who beat (Kentucky Derby winner) Ferdinand and (Preakness winner) Snow Chief (in the 1987 San Fernando Stakes). I had Silveyville, who won the Hollywood Derby (in 1981),'' Headley said, thinking of comparisons. ``He's right there with those horses.''

If Surf Cat is right there with Lava Man and the rest of the 4- to 8-year-old horses in the Pacific Classic, Headley will feel fortunate he was forced to run a 3-year-old against elders in a major race for the first time in his nearly half-century as a trainer.

An airplane door closes, another door opens.

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BY KEVIN MODESTI