LAVA MAN SEEKING TRIPLE CROWN HORSE TRYING FOR CALIFORNIA SWEEP.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI Staff Writer

Lava Man goes for a triple crown today. It's not the Triple Crown, but it's a sensational feat if he pulls it off.

Lava Man is an 8-5 favorite on the morning line for the $1 million Pacific Classic at DelMar, where his seven opponents include Giacomo, the 2005 Kentucky Derby winner, and Perfect Drift, runner-up in this race in '04 and '05.

In 1991, while replacing the old adobe grandstand with a modern fortress, Del Mar created the Pacific Classic to give itself an event matching the distance (1 1/4 miles) and class (3-year-olds and up) of the decades-old Santa Anita Handicap in March and Hollywood Gold Cup in July.

For 15 years, the three races have proved to be as hard to sweep as that more famous Triple Crown.

``It would be amazing (to do it),'' said Doug O'Neill, Lava Man's trainer.

``It would be great to be the first one.''

No horse has swept the three races. No horse has gone into the Pacific Classic with a chance to sweep. The only horse to win two of the races in the same season was Gentlemen, who won the 1997 Gold Cup and Pacific Classic after running third in the Big 'Cap behind two of his mates from trainer Richard Mandella's barn, Siphon and Sandpit.

Only Gentlemen, Siphon, 2002 Big 'Cap winner Milwaukee Brew and 2005 Pacific Classic winner Borrego finished first in one of the races and in the money in the other two.

Best Pal, the great California- bred gelding preceding Lava Man, did win all threeraces, but it took him three years. Best Pal won the 1991 Pacific Classic, the '92 Big 'Cap and the '93 Gold Cup.

To underscore the difficulty of what Lava Man has done just to get to this point: From the 1930s until the Pacific Classic came along, only five horses were able to win the Big 'Cap and Gold Cup in the same year, and they're from a horsy Who's Who: Kayak II (1939), Noor ('50), Ack Ack ('71), Crystal Water ('77) and Affirmed ('79).

In the mid-'90s, when the Mandella-trained horses were carving up California's marquee races for older thoroughbreds, a sponsor was offering a $3 million bonus for a one- horse sweep.

``It's tough to do,'' Mandella said Saturday. ``It's tough to keep a horse good all year like that. (The three races are) too far apart to think of it like the Triple Crown. Too many things can happen in that time.''

The Kentucky Derby-Preakness-Belmont Triple Crown is squeezed into a five-week period in the spring; it's for 3-year-olds, who have no richer or more prestigious races to compete in; and it gains cache from its long history, 11 horses from Sir Barton (1919) to Affirmed ('78) having swept.

The Big 'Cap, Gold Cup and Pacific Classic stretch over 5 1/2 months and compete for horses with rich handicaps all over the country. Few horses run in all three, and those who do will run in other races in between. Trainers and owners don't start the year with this lower-case triple crown as a goal.

Maybe, if Lava Man is successful today, sweeping these races will become a hallmark of a California star.

``It might give (the series) enough attention, so that people might think of it in those terms,'' Mandella said. ``It takes a while to develop that kind of deal.''

Lava Man, a 5-year-old former claimer ridden by Corey Nakatani, has won five consecutive races overall since an end-of-2005 losing streak that began with a third to Borrego in the Pacific Classic.

Lava Man won the Santa Anita Handicap by three-quarters of a length and won his second straight Gold Cup by a nose after a bobbling start -- despite spending the 24 hours before the Gold Cup under surveillance in a detention barn, part of O'Neill's punishment for another horse's failed carbon-dioxide test.

Some, including Perfect Drift trainer Murray Johnson, have suggest Lava Man is merely beating up on a weak group of locals.

But there's nothing to apologize for in today's field. Giacomo (Mike Smith) is coming off his first victory since the Derby. Perfect Drift (Mark Guidry) and Shug McGaughey- trained Good Reward (with three-time Pacific Classic winner Garrett Gomez) have shipped in to try to prove the East Coast is stronger.

Magnum (Alex Solis) and Super Frolic (Jon Court) have threatened the favorite before.

Preachinatthebar (Victor Espinoza) is trained by Bob Baffert, whose 75th Del Mar stakes victory with Behaving Badly in Friday's Rancho Bernardo Handicap broke Charlie Whittingham's record.

Top This and That (Jose Valdivia Jr.), the 20-1 long shot, rounds out the field.

Pacific Classic Day has drawn crowds of about 30,000 to the North San Diego County track the past few years.

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