Weekend Racing at Hollywood Park : Some Remedial Lessons for Temperate Sil

After a morning gallop at Hollywood Park Friday, Temperate Sil was sent through an exercise usually reserved for younger, inexperienced horses: Schooling in the starting gate.

As usual, the 3-year-old roan colt with almost $900,000 in earnings was a model of deportment. It’s in the afternoons, at the beginning of races, when Temperate Sil has resorted to boorish behavior.

Sometimes Temperate Sil can overcome this problem, sometimes he can’t.

On July 3 at Hollywood Park, he acted as if he didn’t want to enter the gate, then when the bell rang, he acted as if he didn’t want to leave. The result was a fifth-place finish as the 3-5 favorite in a six-horse field, while Candi’s Gold won the Silver Screen Handicap by a neck over On the Line.

Candi’s Gold and Temperate Sil will meet again Sunday at Hollywood, where they will be joined by On the Line and three other 3-year-olds in the $200,000 Swaps Stakes.

The season’s windup weekend begins today with the $100,000 Hollywood Juvenile Championship, which is the first local stake for 2-year-old colts, and ends Monday with the $250,000 Sunset Handicap.

Candi’s Gold, who will be ridden by Gary Stevens and will carry 123 pounds, has drawn the inside post for the Swaps. Out from him, in order, are Something Lucky, with Laffit Pincay and 120 pounds; On the Line, Pat Valenzuela, 120; Temperate Sil, Bill Shoemaker, 123; Earn Your Stripes, Chris McCarron, 114, and Pledge Card, Eddie Delahoussaye, 114.

Trainer Charlie Whittingham sounds uncharacteristically pessimistic about Temperate Sil’s chances going into the Swaps. “We’ll be giving away weight to all those horses but the one,” he said. “And my horse will have to go a mile and a quarter.”

Because Temperate Sil missed the Kentucky Derby with a cough, then skipped the rest of the Triple Crown series, he has never had to run as far as the Swaps distance.

Candi’s Gold’s trainer, Eddie Gregson, has the $1-million Travers Stakes at Saratoga in mind after the Swaps, but Whittingham is already starting to sound as though the Aug. 22 race will not be on Temperate Sil’s schedule.

“He would not only have to win, he’d have to run real good here to get to the Travers,” Whittingham said. “There’s a lot of racing left in the fall, and if you’ve got a 3-year-old, he’ll be getting weight from the older horses.”

Whittingham has a better chance to win the Sunset for the 10th time. He won his first with Cougar II in 1973 and took the stake six straight times, starting in 1978.

The trainer will start three horses--Forlitano and the Nelson Bunker Hunt-owned entry of Rivlia and Swink. The entry probably will be favored, and Forlitano is likely to go off the second choice. Rivlia and Forlitano each will carry 122 pounds, which means they will be spotting the opposition 6 to 10 pounds.

Whittingham may have won 10 Sunsets, but fresher in his mind is the 1985 running, in which his Greinton finished second to Kings Island.

“We were going for a million-dollar bonus,” Whittingham said. “And bang! We got beat by that much.”

Whittingham clapped his hands as he said that. In Daily Racing Form language, the margin was a head at the wire.

Horse Racing Notes The explanation for Reloy’s last-place finish in last Sunday’s Vanity Handicap was not that it was her first race on dirt. The 4-year-old filly broke a bone just above the ankle in her right foreleg. The fracture has been fused by two screws, and Reloy, who earned $400,000, has been retired. . . . Chris McCarron is at Belmont Park today, to ride favored Waquoit in the $350,000 Brooklyn Handicap. Otherwise, McCarron would have stayed in town to ride Purdue King in the Hollywood Juvenile. Instead, Bill Shoemaker has the mount. Purdue King is a son of Dimaggio and is owned by John Valpredo, who won the same race with the sire in 1974.

Over All, winner of the Landaluce Stakes two weeks ago and trained by Wayne Lukas, will try to become the fourth filly to win the Juvenile. Two of the others--Althea in 1983 and Terlingua in 1978--were also from the Lukas barn. Bold Liz was the first filly winner, in 1972, and Favorita was a filly who won in 1945, when the race was called the Starlet.

Pat Day will be in from Chicago to ride Forlitano in the Sunset, with McCarron being named on Rivlia and Shoemaker getting Swink. . . . A $5,000 payment is due today to keep horses eligible for the Budweiser-Arlington Million Sept. 6, and trainer Bobby Frankel is debating whether to keep his three horses--Al Mamoon, Gallunpe and Iades--eligible. Al Mamoon has been no higher than sixth in two tries in the Million. “Every time he ships out of town, he gets sick,” Frankel said. . . . Iades, fourth in the Tidal Handicap at Belmont Park in his last start, will run in the Sunset, with Robbie Davis aboard.