NEW-LOOK FORM MAKES IMPACT.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI Horse Racing

When Steve Crist wrote recently about the horse-racing industry's most significant developments of 1998, he listed the popularity of the guaranteed pick-six, the founding of the NTRA ``league office'' and indications the economic bleeding has stopped. He also left out a big one.

It must have been modesty that prevented Crist from including the changes in the Daily Racing Form since the 105-year-old newspaper was purchased in July by a group he led.

``It would have been unseemly for me to herald that as a major development,'' Crist said with a laugh on the phone from New York this week. ``I'll let someone else say that. I wouldn't disagree with you.''

As editor and publisher, Crist has shaken up the Form's lineup of writers, columnists and handicappers and stirred up readers with changes in the past-performance charts from which serious horseplayers pick winners. Added are details on runners' pedigrees, recent class levels and opponents, and distance and surface specialties.

On top of the additions to Form data inspired by Crist's innovative but short-lived Racing Times in 1991-92, the latest round of improvements have created past performances with much of the data - speed figures, turf and muddy-track statistics, and next-out winners from ``key races'' - that studious fans used to have to compile themselves.

Conventional wisdom holds that giving that data to Form readers deprives the sharpies of their edge and makes it harder to beat the races. But Crist said he has no qualms about providing ``a timesaver.''

``My guiding principle (is) if somebody could mark up my Racing Form for me and save me two or three hours a day of extra work and research, what would I want to see in there?'' said Crist, a Harvard-educated former New York Times racing writer. ``I haven't heard anybody say, `I wish I had to spend an extra two hours a day doing my own homework.'

``I know there's a school of thought that the second you put speed figures in the Racing Form, that took away a big edge or it changed the game. But it seems to me favorites are still winning at the same percentage they were 10 years ago.''

``Sure,'' he added, ``the game gets tougher and you're not getting the occasional 12-1 (odds) on a standout top figure horse that Andy (Beyer) was getting in Florida in 1986. But as you well know, you can give 10 handicappers the same information and they'll come up with 10 different horses.

``It's all judgment calls and subtleties and your perception of the value of the (odds). No matter how good you make the PPs, they're never going to produce 100 percent winners.''

Crist's goal is to win back the readers who have turned to expanded track programs for past-performance data, slicing the Form's circulation among racegoers from 30 percent to 15 percent. He hopes the launch of a Form on-line service in about two months will expand the audience. Expanded PPs are part of the pitch.

A Santa Anita racegoer joked last week that the next step is to include an update on each horse's appetite. In fact, Crist said, only one further change is planned - a listing of each runner's auction price.

Some readers want more. One asked for an indication that a horse was washy. Another wanted a symbol when a horse wears a tongue tie.

Said Crist: ``I end up saying, `Hey, if someone thinks that's real important, let him (do the research and) have that as his edge.' ''

Dot's a shame: Dixie Dot Com's dominating victory in the San Fernando Stakes on Saturday will be his last for months. The 4-year-old colt came out of the race with a hairline fracture in his left front shin and will have surgery Saturday.

The Bill Morey-trained horse missed most of 1998 with a similar fracture in the same leg. That injury didn't require surgery.

Dixie Dot Com would have been favored in the $500,000 Strub Stakes on Feb. 6.

99 days to go: Time to throw out the ceremonial first Kentucky Derby contender of the year.

Doneraile Court - popular because of his Derby-winning sire (Seattle Slew), jockey (Jerry Bailey), trainer (Nick Zito) and owner (Michael Tabor) - was the big loser in the Holy Bull Stakes won by 14-1 Grits'n Hard Toast at Gulfstream Park on Saturday. He floundered late in the 1 1/16-mile race, an early test for horses aiming at the 1-1/4-mile Derby on May 1.

Vicar, fifth as the favorite, had the excuse of traffic trouble.

Not Doneraile Court. Toss him out.

Eddie D. countdown: Eddie Delahoussaye went winless at Santa Anita on Thursday and is six from 6,000. He'll be the 14th jockey to win that many races.

Such a milestone - let alone winning two Derbies and seven Breeders' Cup races and making the Hall of Fame - was far from his mind when he started riding 31 years ago in his native Louisiana.

``All I wanted to do was ride horses and win races. It wasn't until (1978), when I was leading rider in the country, that I said, `Maybe there's a little more to it than winning races,' '' Delahoussaye said. ``I said, `All right, now we gotta go . . . get some Derby horses.' ''

The weekend: Sunday's Santa Monica Handicap at Santa Anita, the nation's first Grade I stakes of the year, finds Japanese $3.4 millionaire Seeking the Pearl and jockey Yutaka Take facing a solid field of female sprinters.

The 7-furlong race includes Belle's Flag, starting for the first time since her California Cup Matron win; Love That Jazz, coming off her Vernon Underwood win for the Kent Desormeaux-Neil Drysdale team; and Stop Traffic, 0 for 3 since winning the Ballerina at Saratoga.

A WEEK AT THE RACES 

Santa Anita leaders: Jockeys (before Thursday's races): Alex Solis, 19 wins; David Flores, 18; Chris McCarron, 16; Kent Desormeaux and Gary Stevens, 15. Trainers: Bob Baffert and Bobby Frankel, 9; Ron McAnally, 8; Richard Mandella, 6; seven tied with 4.

Handicapper helper: The natural advantage of front-running horses vanished last week at Santa Anita. From Thursday to Sunday, 12 consecutive sprints were run on the main track without a wire-to-wire winner. That's either a rare coincidence or evidence of a track bias; if it's the latter, early speedsters can be expected to do better next time out.

On the stakes schedule: At Santa Anita: Saturday, $200,000 Santa Monica Handicap, fillies and mares 4 and up, 7 furlongs; Sunday, $100,000 Santa Ynez, 3-year-old fillies, 7 furlongs. At Gulfstream: Saturday, $100,000 Canadian Turf Handicap, 3-year-olds and up, 1-1/8 miles on turf.

Mileposts: Bay Meadows, in San Mateo, opened a 47-day season Thursday. Friday racing will start at 7:15 p.m. beginning Feb. 12. Otherwise the schedule will mimic Santa Anita's. The big race: the March 6 El Camino Real Derby. . . . Golden Gate Fields, the Albany track in Northern California whose season ended Monday, reported attendance and wagering gains, including a 14 percent rise in on-site attendance with the Jan. 1 advent of simulcasting from Florida and New York. Jockey Russell Baze and trainer Jerry Hollendorfer were the leaders, as usual. . . . Laffit Pincay's win Monday aboard Such Charisma ($97) put him an even 150 from Bill Shoemaker's career record (8,833). Pincay rode 104 winners in 1998. . . . Purse for the March 27 Dubai World Cup was raised from $4 million to $5 million. . . . Biggest improvement at Santa Anita since Frank Stronach bought it: the weather. Sixteen racing days and not a drop of rain. The 1997-98 season had ``off' tracks on 38 of 86 days. . . . Gov. Gray Davis withdrew the California Horse Racing Board appointments of Chris Bardis, Jesse Choper and Jack Coffey, all put up for Senate approval by then-Gov. Pete Wilson. Replacements have not been named. . . . Keeneland, the famously old-school track in Lexington, Ky., joined forces with lottery firm GTECH Corp. and Harrah's casinos to purchase Turfway Park near Cincinnati for a reported $37 million. Jerry Carroll and partners had bought the track and surrounding land for $13.5 million in 1986. . . . Breeders' Cup Sprint winner Reraise is aiming for the April 3 Potrero Grande. . . . Del Mar Breeders' Cup Handicap winner Old Trieste, fighting a foot abscess, isn't expected to race until May or June. . . . Real Quiet owner Mike Pegram was named winner of the Big Sport of Turfdom Award by the Turf Publicists of America. Bob Baffert won last year. . . . Arts and Letters, the 1969 Belmont Stakes winner and Horse of the Year, was euthanized when he was in failing health at age 32 in October; oddly, news of the death was kept private until this week by Gainesway, the Kentucky farm where he served as a stallion, the Daily Racing Form reported. . . . Next for El Encino winner Manistique: the Feb. 7 La Canada.

- Kevin Modesti

CAPTION(S):

Box

Box: A WEEK AT THE RACES (See text)