NAKATANI DENIES ANY WRONGDOING\Rider's lawyer says owners let horse race despite injury.

Byline: Kevin Modesti Daily News Staff Writer

Jockey Corey Nakatani, stung by insinuations he caused a horse's fatal breakdown by whipping him after a race at Santa Anita, said Wednesday he did nothing wrong.

Nakatani's attorney, meanwhile, tried to shift the blame for the death of the 2-year-old colt Tillie's Joy to the horse's owners, saying they let him race despite having been told he had suffered a "significant injury" in a workout.

But that charge was denied by the owners, Charles Ottaviano and Jo-Ann Abatangelo of Granada Hills.

Videotape of the incident, which occurred as horses were galloping to a stop following the sixth race on Friday, appears to show Nakatani whipping sixth-place finisher Tillie's Joy four times right-handed more than 100 yards past the wire. Shortly thereafter, apparently as the horses returned to the unsaddling area, Tillie's Joy fractured his left front shin bone.

The horse, who had raced three times without winning, was removed from the track in a van and had to be destroyed.

The California Horse Racing Board is investigating. A hearing in front of Santa Anita stewards was scheduled for Jan. 11 but is expected to be delayed.

A Santa Anita official said the track has received "quite a lot" of telephone inquiries from the public in the wake of local television reports on the matter.

"I want to tell you I didn't do anything wrong," Nakatani, who led the local jockeys in winners last year, said in his first public comments on the controversy. "My conduct was professional conduct. I didn't strike him in anger, and I didn't strike him in the area of the head or face (which would be against racing rules)."

"I love these horses," said Nakatani, 25, a Covina native.

Facing a row of TV cameras at a news conference in the Santa Anita walking ring, Nakatani spoke briefly and didn't explain why he whipped the horse after the race.

But his attorney, Darrell Vienna, said Nakatani was trying to keep the horse from lugging out, or veering away from the inner rail, a use of a whip that is condoned by California law.

"His use of the whip was not severe or abusive, and could not logically have caused the horse to break down," said Vienna, who is a thoroughbred trainer as well as a lawyer.

Rick Arthur, a leading private veterinarian on the Southern California thoroughbred circuit, supported that assertion.

"The reality of it is you couldn't break a horse's leg (by whipping him) if you tried," Arthur said.

Tillie's Joy's trainer, Mike Mitchell, said Nakatani may have intended to make the horse gallop out strongly after the 6-furlong race in order to prepare him for a longer race in the future.

Mitchell said the horse might have injured himself during the race and needed only a misstep to break down afterward.

"He (Nakatani) got into the horse a little hard, and that, I think, is wrong," Mitchell said. "I think it was an honest mistake. . . . I think there should be a fine. (But) I think they're being awful hard on Corey."

CHRB investigator Frank Fink said fines for misusing whips are approximately once-a-month occurrences at local tracks. Jockeys are typically fined a few hundred dollars.

CHRB veterinarian B. William Bell said Tillie's Joy was healthy when he was examined on the mornings of each of his races.

"He was very sound," Mitchell said.

Tillie's Joy's trainer of record was Kevin Stroud when he debuted Sept. 15 with a sixth-place finish at Fairplex Park.

Ottaviano and Abatangelo moved him to Mitchell's barn shortly thereafter. He didn't race again until Dec. 3, when he finished second at Hollywood Park.

Vienna said a Stroud assistant, Ken McMeans, said he advised the owners to let Tillie's Joy rest an injured leg.

And Mitchell said Ottaviano told him the horse might have a tendon problem in his left foreleg; but the trainer said he couldn't find an injury.

Stroud and McMeans could not be reached for comment.

Ottaviano expressed confidence in Mitchell and said he plans to wait for the result of the stewards' hearing before deciding whether to blame Nakatani for what happened.

"Of course it's terrible to lose a horse, especially when you bred him," said Ottaviano, whose only active racehorse was not insured. "But that's part of the horse-racing business."

Two horses have suffered fatal injuries in races in the first seven days of the Santa Anita season.

Racetrack regulars expressed dismay at the attention the Tillie's Joy incident has gotten from local newscasters.

Trainer Jenine Sahadi, who employs Nakatani frequently, said: "He's never been abusive. It's tragic what happened to this horse, but it's ludicrous to think the (whipping and the breakdown) have anything to do with each other."