Weekend Racing at Hollywood Park : Stalwars Begins Comeback Sunday

Stalwars is a horse who came within three days of getting trainer Gary Jones into this year’s Kentucky Derby. That venture came up dandelions instead of roses two months ago, though, so now Jones hopes Stalwars can at least get him to the winner’s circle in the Swaps Stakes for the second time in the last four years.

Jones has spent Stalwars’ entire career playing catch-up, and the game hasn’t changed as the trainer tries to get the 3-year-old son of Stalwart ready for the $200,000 Swaps at Hollywood Park July 24.

Stalwars will face eight other 3-year-olds Sunday in the $150,000 Silver Screen Handicap, the second of three stakes during Hollywood Park’s holiday weekend. Also on the schedule are the $150,000 Hollywood Park Budweiser Breeders’ Cup today and Monday’s $200,000 American Handicap, which could draw a small field.

The Silver Screen, which is 1 1/8 miles on the main track, is not the ideal comeback spot for Stalwars. The colt must beat Lively One, the high weight at 120 pounds; Bel Air Dancer, a stakes winner on grass this season, and Cougarized, who won at Hollywood as a 2-year-old before going East for two wins in eight starts.

“I could have tried to get him into an allowance race instead of the Silver Screen,” Jones said of Stalwars. “But it’s likely that that wouldn’t have filled (had enough horses), so in order to get him ready to run a mile and a quarter (in the Swaps), we’ve got to run him Sunday.”

Jones was preparing Stalwars to run the 1-mile Kentucky Derby, but the colt developed a fever the Wednesday before the race and wasn’t entered.

A month before the Derby, Jones thought he had one of the best 3-year-olds in the country, since Stalwars had rallied from off the pace in the Jim Beam Stakes at Turfway Park in Florence, Ky., and missed beating Kingpost by a head.

Stalwars might have started to take ill the week after that, when he was sent to Keeneland to be trained for the Lexington Stakes, his final Derby prep on April 16. Stalwars quit eating. When Jones, who had returned to Hollywood Park to supervise his operation there, went back to Kentucky before the Lexington, he couldn’t believe how much weight Stalwars had lost. The colt ran third in the Lexington, but the winner, Risen Star, beat him by 12 lengths.

“Maybe it’s all for the best,” Jones said Friday. “If the temperature at Churchill Downs hadn’t told us something, we probably would have run the horse and might have killed him.”

Assuming that Stalwars can regain his earlier form--he was first or second in five straight races before the Lexington--Jones would still like to have the chance of trying him against the best of his generation. Later this year, there are two $1-million races--the Travers at Saratoga and the Super Derby at Louisiana Downs--that could be on Stalwars’ schedule.

It would not be an inopportune time of the year to have a fresh 3-year-old, because Risen Star, the Preakness and Belmont winner and the clear-cut leader of the division, has leg problems and may be headed for early retirement. He has already been syndicated for breeding for $14 million.

The field for the Silver Screen, in post-position order, consists of Ongoing Mister, with Sam Maple riding and a weight of 116 pounds; Blade of the Ball, Corey Black, 114; Cougarized, Laffit Pincay, 118; Just as Luck, Eddie Delahoussaye, 112; Bel Air Dancer, Gary Stevens, 117; Iz a Saros, Aaron Gryder, 113; Keepmeinstitches, Antonio Castanon, 113; Stalwars, Chris McCarron, 119, and Lively One, Bill Shoemaker, 120. Just as Luck and Keepmeinstitches are coupled in the betting.

McCarron will be riding Stalwars for the second time, having been aboard in the Lexington.

Stevens had been Stalwars’ regular rider through the Jim Beam, but he then wisely stayed with Winning Colors, the filly who won the Derby. For Stevens, however, it was not an easy choice until Winning Colors won the Santa Anita Derby. That’s how much potential Stalwars had in the spring. Jones still hasn’t given up on that potential.

Silent Arrival, a 5-year-old mare who hadn’t won this year and who had never won on grass, passed six horses in the last sixteenth of a mile Friday and won the $114,400 Valkyr Handicap by 1 lengths over Table Frolic, with Variety Baby finishing third, another 1 3/4 lengths back.

Silent Arrival gave Eddie Delahoussaye his sixth stakes win of the meeting, which tied Stevens for the lead. With a record of 0 for 9 on grass and winless in eight tries going back to May 1987, Silent Arrival still went off the favorite in the 12-horse scramble, paying $6.60 and running 6 furlongs in 1:08, missing the American and Hollywood Park turf record held by Zany Tactics by three-fifths of a second.

Horse Racing Notes

Only three horses--Steinlen, Deputy Governor and Skip Out Front--are definite for Monday’s American Handicap. . . . Laffit Pincay, who won his first race in the United States 22 years ago Friday, won the first race. Pincay is closing in on his 7,000th victory. . . . Palace March, a 12-1 longshot ridden by Julie Krone, won Friday’s Dominion Day Stakes at Woodbine near Toronto, Canada, by 6 lengths, with Manzotti second and favored Creme Fraiche third.

Gary Jones saddled consecutive winners at Hollywood, winning the sixth with Kiddie Bear and the seventh with Athlone. . . . Craig Lewis, the meet’s leading trainer, saddled his 19th winner when Kiss a Bettor won the second race. . . . Goodbye Halo, with seven wins in nine starts, is a 4-5 favorite in Sunday’s Coaching Club American Oaks at Belmont Park.