Racing at Hollywood Park : Woman Trainer Has 2 Shots at Oaks Win

Not many women trainers have won major races in the United States. In fact, the list may consist of only three--Mary Lou Tuck at Hollywood Park in 1980, Vivian Pulliam at Santa Anita in 1983 and Sally Bailie at Belmont Park in 1984 and ’85.

Bailie’s good grass gelding, the aptly named Win, won the Manhattan Handicap in 1984 and the Man o’ War the following year. The New York trainer also saddled the winner of a $200,000 race when Fast Gold took the Pegasus at the Meadowlands in 1982.

That same fall of ‘82, Pulliam came as close as a trainer can come to winning a $400,000 race, but her Avigaition was disqualified in favor of Castilla by the stewards in the Yellow Ribbon at Santa Anita. Avigaition and Pulliam still had their day, with the filly Vivian’s husband bred winning the La Canada the following year.

Tuck might have been the first woman to train the winner of a major race when her gray 5-year-old, Go West Young Man, finished first in the $400,000 Hollywood Gold Cup in 1980. This year, trainer Dianne Carpenter won a $500,000 race when her Kingpost took the Jim Beam Stakes at Turfway Park.

Now Jacque Fulton, who has become a trainer through heritage, osmosis and marriage, has not one, but two chances to win today’s $150,000 Hollywood Oaks at Hollywood Park.

Fulton’s two Oaks starters--Clean Lines and Super Avie--are escapees from the claiming ranks, 3-year-old fillies that the 39-year-old trainer picked out of races for $40,000 apiece within 15 days of one another last fall at Santa Anita.

Selecting horses like these, and having them go on to stakes victories, means more to Fulton than crashing what has largely been a male preserve in racing. And both fillies are already stakes winners, Super Avie having won a small race at Golden Gate Fields in May and Clean Lines having beaten her stablemate and another Oaks starter--Flying Countess--in the Princess at Hollywood Park two weeks ago.

Fulton worked for her trainer-father, Byron Hendricks, when she was a kid, then galloped horses for Charlie Whittingham after arthritis forced her father into retirement.

During eight years with Whittingham, Fulton wound up on the backs of Dahlia, King Pellinore and Cougar II. More recently, even though she has been training on her own since 1985, Fulton has been around the Whittingham barn enough to exercise Ferdinand, Temperate Sil and Hidden Light.

“Working with Charlie, just about every horse in his barn was of stakes caliber, and you were exposed to one good horse after another,” Fulton said. “That helps when you’re trying to pick out horses. I think it’s given me a good eye for good horses.”

Fulton claimed Clean Lines out of the first race of the filly’s career.

“She had had a good workout from the gate,” Fulton said. “And one of my clients (Tony Busching, an executive producer of television commercials), liked the Ack Ack breeding.”

Busching’s $40,000 had already been guaranteed as Clean Lines ran 11th, beating only one horse. Under Fulton, Clean Lines didn’t run again until 10 weeks later, and in her first two starts for the new trainer she was 4th and 7th, beaten by a total margin of 26 1/2 lengths.

Did Fulton think she had made a mistake? Clean Lines was returned to the claiming ranks--from $32,000 to $50,000--for several races after that.

“No, we still liked her,” Fulton said. “She broke from the 10 hole in the race we claimed her, and stumbled leaving the gate. Her first race for me wasn’t that bad, but it was hard on her, and I probably ran her back too quickly in the next race. She was immature. And sometimes horses just need racing to get over that, and she was one of those. We also couldn’t decide whether to sprint her or route her. She’d always wind up running wide in the sprints.”

The second time Clean Lines was asked to stretch out, she won by 7 1/2 lengths at 1 1/16 miles at Santa Anita in March. She won at a mile a month later and after two allowance starts on the grass--a first and a seventh--bettors were confused going into the Princess.

Clean Lines went off at 24-1, took an easy early lead and won by 2 3/4 lengths over Flying Countess, who was next to the winner all the way. The Oaks, at 1 1/8 miles, will be the longest Clean Lines has been asked to run.

Jacque left Whittingham when she became friends with John Fulton, an established California trainer. They eventually married but were divorced two years ago, and Jacque’s 13 horses are stabled in the same barn that’s also assigned to John at Hollywood Park.

“John trains most of his horses at a training center, and just ships them in for the races,” Jacque Fulton said. “I might see him around the barn every week or so, if that.”