Hollywood Park : Pancho Villa Wins National Sprint as Favored Precisionist Runs Fourth

They call the fall season at Hollywood Park the Meeting of Champions.

Maybe that first word should be changed to Defeating. Or Unseating.

When Pancho Villa stormed home by a length in Saturday’s $202,900 National Sprint Championship, it represented the second time in less than a week that an Eclipse Award favorite had been beaten at the Inglewood track.

Last Sunday, it was Estrapade, generally rated the front-runner in the older filly and mare division on grass, who was fourth in the Matriarch Invitational.

Saturday, it was Precisionist, coming off a sensational victory in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint at Aqueduct Nov. 2, who was beaten. He too, finished fourth as the 2-5 favorite of the 33,433 fans.

Laffit Pincay found room between front-running Charging Falls and faltering Temerity Prince in steering Pancho Villa to his one-length victory in the track record-equaling time of 1:08 4/5 for six furlongs.

Pancho Villa, who finished fifth, beaten 3 3/4 lengths in the Breeders’ Cup race, paid $15.20, $6.40 and $3.40 Saturday. Charging Falls, ridden by Brian Long, paid $10.20 and $4.60, and Temerity Prince, with Wesley Ward up, returned $3.40 as his three-race win streak was snapped.

Though the track was muddy all afternoon following Friday’s heavy rains, times in most of Saturday’s races were eye-catching.

For example, Innamorato won the third race, for $62,500 claimers, in 1:33 3/5 for the mile, and Hy King, covered six furlongs in 1:09 4/5 in the second race, an event for $50,000 maiden claimers.

But Precisionist, who last May 19 ran one of the fastest miles in history, 1:32 4/5, while winning the Mervyn LeRoy Handicap at Hollywood Park, found the track not to his liking, according to his rider, Chris McCarron.

“At no time did he have a hold of the track,” McCarron said, “and that’s not him. He’s usually pulling real hard.”

In the run for home, it was Pancho Villa and Pincay doing the pulling. The winner got a break when Charging Falls, the leader to the stretch, went wide.

“Up to then, I didn’t know whether to try to go outside of him or to go inside,” Pincay said. “When he went out, I went in.”

The victory by Pancho Villa was worth $121,900, including $27,000 in Breeders’ Cup Premium Awards, to his owners, Texas oilman Bob French and Wayne Lukas, who also is the trainer of the horse.

“I have part interest in about four or five of the horses I train,” Lukas said, “but this one’s the best of that group.” Lukas said that he and French purchased Pancho Villa, a full-brother to former top filly Terlingua, for $1.8 million at the 1983 Keeneland fall yearling sale.

Pancho Villa, the only 3-year-old in the six-horse National Sprint Championship field, won his seventh race in 16 starts this year and provided Lukas with his 66th stakes win of 1985.

Horse Racing Notes Slew the Dragon, five-length winner of a division of the Hollywood Derby Nov. 17, will not accept an invitation to next Sunday’s Hollywood Turf Cup, for which he would have been one of the favorites. Trainer John Hertler said by phone from New York that the Seattle Slew colt would be sent to Ocala, Fla., and kept in light training. Slew the Dragon’s schedule will be determined after Jan. 1, Hertler said. . . . Committed, the English-raced filly considered the best sprinter in Europe this year, was scratched from Saturday’s feature by trainer Ron McAnally, who recently took over her conditioning. The muddy track was believed to be the reason. Committed ran seventh in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint at Aqueduct last month in her first appearance on dirt. She has won 16 of 27 starts on grass. . . . Fifty Six Ina Row, who finished last in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint, also was scratched Saturday. . . . Jockey Gary Stevens, who suffered a separated right shoulder and a broken knee in a training accident at Santa Anita Oct. 10, said he will begin galloping horses in two weeks. When he was injured, it was believed Stevens would be sidelined four to six months. . . . Hail Bold King, runner-up to Eclipse Award-winner Slew O’Gold in the 1984 Jockey Cup Gold Cup, has returned to training at Hollywood Park for Charlie Whittingham, who said the colt will probably make his first start in early 1986.