Cinema Handicap : On the Line Starts Off Fast, but at the Finish It’s Something Lucky

Pat Valenzuela, riding On the Line in Sunday’s $114,150 Cinema Handicap, was so far ahead of the other five horses going down the backstretch that he knew something was funny.

“Either they were running too slow or my horse was running too fast,” Valenzuela would say later.

After On the Line crossed the finish line fifth, beaten by about six lengths, Valenzuela was able to glance at the infield tote board and see the answer. It was not a happy sight for the 24-year-old jockey. On the Line had gone a half-mile in :44 4/5 and six furlongs in 1:09, speed that killed in the 1 1/8-mile grass stake.

Something Lucky, who trailed On the Line by 8 1/2 lengths at one point, profited from the swift early fractions and came from out of the pack at the top of the stretch to win the Cinema by 2 lengths over The Medic, who went off the 17-10 favorite before 44,187, Hollywood Park’s second largest crowd of the season.

The Medic finished 2 1/2 lengths in front of Savona Tower, who had been expected to challenge On the Line for the lead, but stayed back when Valenzuela got his mount so far ahead.

Something Lucky, the 2-1 second choice after he had beaten The Medic by a length a month ago in his grass debut, the Will Rogers Handicap, covered Sunday’s distance in 1:46 4/5, breaking the stakes record of 1:47 that was set by Beau’s Eagle in 1979 and matched by grass-champion Manila last year.

With Laffit Pincay content to watch On the Line and Valenzuela from a safe distance in the early going, Something Lucky had plenty left at the end and paid $6.40, $3 and $2.60. He earned $62,400 for his breeder, Bud Johnston of Old English Rancho, who races the 3-year-old Somethingfabulous-Luck’s Fancy colt in partnership with Harold Meloth and John Stonebraker.

The Medic paid $2.80 and $2.40 and Savona Tower returned $3.40. Mountaincamellia, who would have been a longshot, was scratched because of a slight temperature.

Something Lucky, who has now won four of eight starts, gave his trainer, Don Warren, the biggest win of his career. Warren wasn’t worried when On the Line opened up the big early lead.

“If the other horse had been six in front and was running in :48, then I might have been worried,” Warren said. “As it was, I thought we were in the garden spot. Laffit was very patient, just sitting behind all that speed.”

Pincay rode as though On the Line wasn’t even in the race.

“I just forgot about the horse on the lead,” he said. “I was just thinking about the one in front of me (Savona Tower).”

The way Warren and Pincay had mapped out the race, On the Line and Savona Tower would be the early speed. Warren told Pincay he’d be all right if he stayed four or five lengths behind that pair.

“As it turned out, Savona Tower didn’t run with On the Line,” Warren said. “But it didn’t make any difference, because On the Line was just going too quick.”

Valenzuela was riding On the Line for the first time.

“He was trying to get out in the first part,” the jockey said. “I knew that he had tried to do that before. After I got him back in, I let him have his head, and that was a mistake. At the head of the stretch, I knew I didn’t have too much horse left.”

The second-place finish for The Medic was his third straight.

“The pace should have set it up perfect for us,” trainer Gary Jones said. “We just got outrun.”

Chris McCarron, riding The Medic, was next to last, 11 lengths behind, on the backstretch.

“The pace was so fast in front that it took a long time to catch up,” McCarron said. “At the three-eighths pole, I thought I had a good chance of catching Laffit (and Something Lucky). He seemed to be having trouble getting past Savona Tower. But Laffit’s horse is running great just now.”

Something Lucky’s back-to-back grass wins have followed his fifth-place finish on dirt in the California Derby in mid-April.

“He had just had two tough races,” Warren said, “in the San Felipe Handicap (fourth) and the Santa Anita Derby (third). He never looked like a winner in the California Derby, and I think we were asking too much of him. You shouldn’t be shipping a tired horse. You ship a tired anything and you get nothing.”

It’s likely that Something Lucky will remain on grass. “He can beat some of the good grass horses, he’s shown that,” Johnston said. “But on dirt, against horses like Temperate Sil (winner of the Santa Anita Derby), it’s probably too tough for him.”

Horse Racing Notes

Trainer Ross Brinson said that Prince Don B. won’t run in next Sunday’s $500,000 Hollywood Gold Cup. The lightly raced Prince Don B. came out of a Saturday workout a tired horse and Brinson doesn’t feel that he’s ready to run 1 miles now. . . . Trainer Neil Drysdale said that Tasso will run in the Gold Cup. “But he needs to do something dramatic in order to have a chance,” Drysdale said. . . . Alysheba, winner of the Kentucky Derby and Preakness and fourth in the Belmont Stakes, is expected to resume training in New York on July 1, with the Travers at Saratoga in August as his next objective. Scheduled to be shipped to Chicago after the Belmont, Alysheba instead wound up on the Long Island farm of Len Imperio, whose barn the colt occupied during Belmont week. Alysheba’s owners were impressed with Imperio’s farm and felt that the heat in Chicago might not help their horse.