ARCADIA, Calif. - Just hours before Guided Tour and trainer Niall O'Callaghan were scheduled to leave California on a Thursday morning flight to New Orleans, the trainer decided to stay out West for a few more days.

After consulting with owner Morton Fink of Chicago, the decision was reached to try Guided Tour against Tiznow, the 2001 Horse of the Year, in Saturday's $1 million Santa Anita Handicap and pass a start in Sunday's $500,000 New Orleans Handicap at Fair Grounds, a race in which he would have been favored.

After a week of considering their options, the difficult decision was made late Wednesday.

"Money was a factor. The Santa Anita Handicap is a race we might not have a shot to win again," O'Callaghan said Thursday morning."

He said another reason to stay was the status of Tiznow, who has suffered from quarter cracks in his right front foot throughout the week. Tiznow is expected to run on Saturday but his trainer, Jay Robbins, listed the horse as day-to-day throughout the week.

"The thing that turned us around is that Tiznow might not run or that he was day to day," O'Callaghan said. "We're not out to take on Tiznow. If we went home to New Orleans and this came up sloppy and Tiznow wasn't in the field, we'd think, 'Why didn't we try that?'"

Reports from trainer Kathy Walsh, with whom Guided Tour has been based locally, also figured into the decision.

"He seems to have done well since he's been here in terms of his coat and weight, and he's had a race over the track," O'Callaghan said.

It also didn't hurt O'Callaghan's confidence that he received the blessing of an Irish priest he met after a Mass at a westside church on Wednesday evening.

The priest, from County Mayo, was aware of O'Callaghan, who is from County Cork, because of Guided Tour's victory in the San Antonio Handicap, and wished him luck on Saturday.

O'Callaghan even felt like a minor celebrity while talking to the priest. "That could change by 5 p.m. Saturday," he said with a laugh.

An impressive winner of the San Antonio Handicap on Feb. 4 in his California debut, Guided Tour is expected to give a good account of himself. He is likely to be the second or third betting choice in the Big Cap. The other leading contenders are Tiznow and Wooden Phone, who upset Tiznow in the Strub Stakes on Feb. 3.

The 5-year-old Guided Tour, who worked a half mile in 53.40 seconds between races on Thursday, won his first Grade 2 in the San Antonio, which was preceded by a two-length win in the $75,000 Louisiana Handicap at Fair Grounds on Dec. 30. Aside from a 12th in the Breeders' Cup Classic at 91-1 last November, Guided Tour has finished first or second in his last nine starts in stakes and allowance races, and has won six times.

After the San Antonio, O'Callaghan said he would like to avoid major stakes in 2001 and run in smaller stakes, staying away from the top horses. "It must have been the salt air that got to me that day," O'Callaghan said Thursday, laughing before he finished the sentence.