Blushing John Wins in Hollywood Gold Cup

Neither the jockey nor the horse was available for comment after the race, but Blushing John said enough during the two minutes or so it took him to win the $500,000 Hollywood Gold Cup.

Correcting an oversight from his last race, Blushing John took the lead on the far turn Sunday and then comfortably held off Sabona at the wire to win the 50th Gold Cup by one length. The order of the first two finishers was reversed in the shorter Californian three weeks ago, when Sabona rallied for a 1 1/4-length victory.

This time, before a Hollywood Park crowd of 28,939, Sabona settled for second place, finishing 3 1/2 lengths in front of Payant, one of three starters saddled by Charlie Whittingham, who was trying to win his ninth Gold Cup. Whittingham’s other starters--Lively One and Nasr El Arab--finished fourth and fifth, respectively. Nasr El Arab never was a factor, and Lively One faded after he got a nose in front of the pace-setting Henbane just before Blushing John took the lead on the turn.

Favored Blushing John, ridden by Pat Day, ran 1 1/4 miles in 2:00 2/5 and paid $4.60, $2.60 and $2.20. Sabona paid $3 and $2.60, and Payant returned $3.40. Blushing John, European-raced until last November, won for the fourth time in seven American starts, earned $275,000 for his owner, Allen Paulson, and increased his career total to $1.1 million.

The Gold Cup went off at 5:27 p.m., only 33 minutes before Day’s return flight to Chicago. Day must have made the plane, considering the way he darted from the winner’s circle to the jockeys’ room and out of the race track en route to LAX.

“I told Pat to do something different than what he did last time,” said Dick Lundy, who trains all of Paulson’s horses in the United States. “In the Californian, we were worried about one horse--Ruhlmann--and I think we might have used our horse more than we wanted in order to make sure he didn’t get away from us.

“This time, I told Pat to ride his own race and not worry about anybody else. Neil Drysdale’s horse (Sabona) ran a good race, but I didn’t think he’d catch us, because my horse came home in 24 seconds flat.”

Until then, the pace was dull, with Henbane, a 37-1 shot making his first U.S. stakes appearance, running a half-mile in :47 2/5 and six furlongs in 1:11 4/5. Henbane finished sixth.

“It was a slow pace and a slow race, period,” Whittingham said. “Every time Nasr El Arab tried to move up, they’d move away from him again. A slow pace doesn’t help a horse like that.”

Nasr El Arab was last in the seven-horse field after a half-mile and moved up to fifth after three-quarters of a mile, but he was still about six lengths off the lead, which is just about where he was when Blushing John hit the wire.

Chris McCarron has won more than 130 stakes at Hollywood Park, but he has never won a Gold Cup. Sabona gave him his eighth second-place finish in 10 tries.

“Lordy, second-best again,” McCarron said. “It felt like they were walking up front today. I had my horse relaxing on a loose rein. He ran his tail off, but he just wasn’t good enough.”

Like Whittingham, Pat Valenzuela, the rider on Nasr El Arab, bemoaned the slow pace.

“Claiming horses run faster than that,” Valenzuela said. “We moved up a little coming around the turn, and my horse had a little bit of a kick, but he didn’t have the kick that the others had. He handled the track good, but I was upset that the fractions weren’t faster.”

The Gold Cup was only the third start on dirt for Nasr El Arab. He won the Strub at Santa Anita in February on the main track, but that was in mud, and on a fast track in the Santa Anita Handicap he couldn’t take to the going and finished eighth as the 7-5 favorite.

Lively One ran early as though he might win his first stake since he took the Swaps at Hollywood 11 months ago.

“I had great position,” said his jockey, Robbie Davis. “But then he didn’t finish as strong as I thought. We were supposed to be closer than he usually is, and that’s where we were. He had a beautiful trip, but I needed more horse.”

After the Gold Cup, Paulson, who paid $850,000 for Blushing John, proclaimed that the 4-year-old son of Blushing Groom and La Griffe is the best older horse in the country.

“He beat the horses that ran Saturday in Chicago (in the Budweiser-Hawthorne Gold Cup), and now he’s beaten the best they have here,” Paulson said.

Blushing John will return to grass in his next start, the United Nations Handicap at Atlantic City, N.J., on July 19, in preparation for the Arlington Million on Sept. 3.

The rest of the year calls for a return to dirt, climaxed by the $3-million Breeders’ Cup Classic at Gulfstream Park on Nov. 4. Sunday Silence, winner of the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness, and Easy Goer, winner of the Belmont, should be the most formidable opposition then.

“We’re shooting for horse of the year,” Paulson said. “I thought we won it in 1987, when Theatrical won the Breeders’ Cup Turf, but Ferdinand beat us out when he won the Classic.

“Apparently, you’ve got to win the big Breeders’ Cup dirt race to get horse of the year. And if that’s what it takes, that’s the race we’ll run in.”

Horse Racing Notes

The attendance of 28,939 was the lowest in Gold Cup history. The previous low was the crowd of 33,227 last year. The biggest crowd for the stake, 58,971, saw Native Diver win his first of three consecutive Gold Cups in 1965. . . . Sunday’s handle of $9 million, which included money bet by 9,000 fans at nine off-track locations, barely missed the record for a Gold Cup day, and the amount bet on the stake, $1.1 million, was a record.

In another stake at Hollywood Park Sunday, Sam Who got his fifth consecutive victory by taking the $140,150 Budweiser Breeders’ Cup by a half-length over Star Cutter. Sam Who, trained by Henry Moreno and ridden by Laffit Pincay, paid $8.40 to win in his grass debut, running six furlongs in 1:08. . . . Hollywood Park will be closed today, Tuesday and Wednesday, then resume racing for six consecutive days through July 4, and will be dark again on Wednesday, July 5.