Precisionist Is Second in First-Class Effort : Retiring 7-Year-Old Loses Stretch Duel to Cutlass Reality by a Head

It’s a shame that Precisionist won’t be around for a rerun of the gritty stretch duel that he and Cutlass Reality waged Saturday in the $114,100 Native Diver Handicap at Hollywood Park.

As a long-running show, Precisionist and Cutlass Reality would be like Precisionist and Greinton in all those memorable matchups a few years ago. But Precisionist is bound for the breeding shed again, where owner Fred Hooper is hoping that his stallion will succeed, after failing the last time.

Precisionist didn’t go out a winner Saturday, but he lost no respect in losing by a head to Cutlass Reality, who needed all his resolve to reach the wire first. Cutlass Reality, seventh at muddy Churchill Downs in the Breeders’ Cup Classic last month, won his fifth straight race and fourth stake at Hollywood Park, where he has lost only once in six starts.

Cutlass Reality, carrying 124 pounds to Precisionist’s 123, was sent off as the favorite by a crowd of 21,370 and paid $4, $2.60 and $2.20. Precisionist paid $2.60 and $2.20. Payant, who finished third, 2 3/4 lengths behind Precisionist, paid $2.20.

Cutlass Reality ran 1 1/8 miles in 1:48 3/5, earning $63,700 for his owners, Howard Crash and Jim Hankoff, and increasing his career total to $1.4 million.

Precisionist, a 7-year-old, is being retired from the track again with a record of 20 wins, 10 seconds and 4 thirds in 45 starts. The reddish son of Crozier and Excellently has earned $3,485,398, which leaves him in seventh place on the money list.

“I missed him the last time he went away, and I’ll miss him again,” said Chris McCarron, who rode Precisionist 38 times and was aboard for 16 of the horse’s 17 stakes wins. Precisionist finished his career with a screw in his left foreleg, which was needed to fuse a fracture that he suffered early in 1987.

McCarron said that Precisionist’s best race was the 1985 Strub at Santa Anita, where he beat Greinton by a nose in a wire-to-wire performance.

The 6-year-old Cutlass Reality, who will be back next year, finished 1988 by winning for the seventh time in 14 starts after winning only 6 races in his first 4 years.

“It was a horse race from the quarter pole home,” said Craig Lewis, Cutlass Reality’s trainer. “Those two horses gave the fans a thrill and they gave me one, too. The race went much like I thought it would, with Calestoga pushing Precisionist early and our horse making his run at the three-eighths pole.”

Like Precisionist, Calestoga went into the Native Diver with 20 wins in 44 starts, but with only $648,000 in purses. Running on the outside and with McCarron high in the saddle, Precisionist, the 19-10 second choice, stayed just about even with Calestoga through early fractions of :22 4/5 and :46.

On the far turn, Precisionist assumed the lead, and that’s when Gary Stevens sent Cutlass Reality into gear along the rail. Calestoga dropped back and finished fifth in the seven-horse field.

“We were head and head at the eighth pole, but I hadn’t gone to my stick yet,” Stevens said. “My horse seems to thrive on the rail, even though nobody’s won down there in three days. So nobody was really fighting to keep the rail closed.

“This horse was good today, and being inside didn’t bother him. He had something left at the end.”

McCarron, in a battle with New York jockey Jose Santos for the national money title, won three straight races earlier on the program. “I wish Precisionist could have gone out a winner,” McCarron said. “I wish that I had room to hit him left-handed, because he runs better from that side. His downfall was always his anxiousness, his eagerness to get going early. But he’s no quitter, he’s always been a real hard fighter.”

While Precisionist heads for the 91-year-old Hooper’s farm in Ocala, Fla., for the breeding season that starts Feb. 15, Cutlass Reality will remain in training for the $1-million Santa Anita Handicap on March 5. His prep for that stake will be the San Pasqual Handicap on Jan. 29 or the San Antonio Handicap on Feb. 12.

Lewis said he believed that the mud at Churchill Downs kept Cutlass Reality from running better in the Breeders’ Cup.

“He’s a big, powerful, strong horse who can’t get hold of muddy tracks,” Lewis said.

Crash and Hankoff had d to pay a supplementary fee of $360,000 to make Cutlass Reality eligible for the Breeders’ Cup, because the horse hadn’t been nominated by another owner as a yearling.

“We had to pay $120,000 of that a couple of weeks before the race,” Lewis said. “And we said that we wouldn’t pay the rest if it looked like there might be an off track.

“But at entry time (three days before the race), the sun was out, so we went ahead.”

Lewis said that if losing $360,000 hadn’t been a consideration, he would have scratched Cutlass Reality from the Breeders’ Cup, rather than run in mud.

Saturday’s win was only a small installment toward getting that $360,000 back. A win in the Big ‘Cap would recover it all and leave a tidy profit as well.

Horse Racing Notes

Another veteran, 6-year-old Nostalgia’s Star, ran his last race Saturday, a 1 1/4-length win over Dynaformer in the $112,200 Gallant Fox Handicap at Aqueduct. Nostalgia’s Star finished his career with only 9 wins in 58 starts, but he finished second or third 29 times and earned $2.1 million. . . . In the $45,000 Theatrical Handicap at Hollywood Park Saturday, Five Daddy Five, with Alex Solis astride, won by 2 3/4 lengths. Five Daddy Five, 2 for 14 this year before Saturday, gave trainer Brian Mayberry two wins for the day. Neil Drysdale also saddled two winners.

Despite a giveaway of eight automobiles, Saturday’s attendance was down about 4,000 from the previous Saturday. . . . At Bay Meadows, undefeated King Glorious worked three-quarters of a mile in 1:15 2/5 in preparation for the $1-million Hollywood Futurity a week from today. King Glorious will be shipped to Hollywood in the next day or two. . . . John Fulton, who has been training since 1973, saddled his last horse when Speeding Light finished sixth in the Native Diver. Fulton plans to become a bloodstock agent. . . . Gary Stevens will try to give trainer Charlie Whittingham his fourth win in the nine-year history of the Matriarch when he rides Ladanum in the $200,000 race today. . . . Biff Lowry has resigned as resident manager of Los Alamitos, saying that he wants to concentrate on personal business in Utah.