Weekend Racing at Hollywood Park : Argentine Mare Leaves U.S. Opponents Gasping

The first two times Bayakoa ran in the United States, she had to be carried off the track in a horse van. More recently, it’s been Bayakoa’s opposition that has had trouble catching its breath.

A winner in five of six starts this year, Bayakoa will try to add her third major victory today when she runs in the $200,000 Vanity Handicap at Hollywood Park. The Vanity supplies two testimonials to Bayakoa’s excellence: Only four horses are expected to run against her, and the 5-year-old Argentine-bred mare has been assigned 125 pounds, more weight than the top males have been asked to carry this season.

Five horses were originally entered to face Bayakoa in the 1 1/8-mile Vanity, but trainer Charlie Whittingham said he will run Goodbye Halo and leave Rosadora in the barn. The three other entrants--Flying Julia, Carita Tostada and Hollywood Glitter--couldn’t catch Bayakoa when she won the Milady Handicap by a length under 124 pounds on June 17.

Goodbye Halo, who used to be in the limelight--she finished second to the Kentucky Derby winner, Winning Colors, in the Eclipse Awards voting for best 3-year-old filly last year--has been second to Bayakoa in her last three starts, never coming closer than two lengths.

“Goodbye Halo hasn’t gone backwards, it’s just that the other horse is real good right now,” Whittingham said. “Maybe the weights will help. Now we’re getting weight, when it used to be the other way around.”

Goodbye Halo is rated three pounds under Bayakoa today. In the Santa Margarita Handicap at Santa Anita on Feb. 19, which was their first meeting, Goodbye Halo carried 125 pounds to Bayakoa’s 118. Bayakoa led all the way and won by two lengths.

In the Apple Blossom Handicap at Oaklawn Park two months later, Bayakoa won by four lengths, carrying five pounds less than Goodbye Halo. The last time they met, in the Hawthorne Handicap at Hollywood on May 20, Bayakoa was a 4 1/2-length winner, carrying 122 pounds, one less than Goodbye Halo.

Trainer Ron McAnally, after paying $300,000 for Bayakoa on behalf of Kansas banker and cattleman Frank Whitham, saw the horse win her first American start, at Hollywood Park in May 1988.

“But she hyperventilated badly,” McAnally said. “They needed an ambulance to get her off the track.”

Bayakoa’s next start was in the Lady Canterbury Handicap at Canterbury Downs, near Minneapolis, where she led until the top of the stretch before fading to sixth place.

“The heat and humidity were tremendous in Minnesota that day,” McAnally said. “And it was the same thing. They had to haul her off in a van again.”

Bayakoa’s metabolism runs high both before and after races, although McAnally thinks that she has been more settled lately. In her only loss this year, Bayakoa broke through the gate before the start of the Santa Maria Handicap at Santa Anita, usually a bad sign for any horse. She couldn’t hold the lead that day and finished second, three-quarters of a length behind Miss Brio.

Coming from Argentina, Bayakoa might be expected to handle intense heat.

“It is hot down there, and they run in humidity that reminds you of the kind you find in New York on their worst days,” McAnally said. “But South American horses seem to come up here and then have trouble adjusting to our heat. (Trainer) Mel Stute bought some horses down there, and several of them had the same problem when they ran here.”

Horse Racing Notes

Hollywood Park’s other weekend stake, the $300,000 Bel Air Handicap on Sunday, will also have only five runners, headed by Ruhlmann, the top weight at 122 pounds. The others are Rahy, 117 pounds; Mi Preferido, 116; Hot Operator, 112; and Super Surgeon, 107. . . . Houston, idle since his sixth-place finish in the Preakness, runs today in the seven-furlong Tom Fool Handicap at Belmont Park. He’ll carry 114 pounds, two less than the high weights, Sewickley and Claim.

The closing-day stake at Hollywood Park on July 23 will be the $75,000 Auld Lang Syne Handicap for 3-year-olds and up at 1 1/4 miles on grass. That race replaces the Sunset Handicap, which was switched to next Friday night, when the track honors Bill Shoemaker. . . . Antonio Castanon’s 16-year-old brother, Jesus, begins riding at Hollywood today. . . . Magical Mile, who’ll be favored a week from today in the Hollywood Juvenile, worked six furlongs Friday in 1:13. . . . Cutlass Reality, who spent his first breeding season at the Harris Farms in Coalinga, is leaving California and will stand next year in New York, where his owners live.

When Judge Angelucci was flown from California to Seattle for his victory in the Longacres Mile in 1987, the one-horse charter cost $40,000, half of which was paid by the track. This year, there are five regularly scheduled cargo flights a week to Seattle, which enables local horses to be shipped to Longacres for less than $4,000 apiece.