HORSE RACING : Breeders’ Cup Took Exacting Toll

The effects of the Breeders’ Cup often linger long after the races have been digested.

Several outstanding runners--among them Precisionist, Skywalker, Brave Raj, Success Express and Twilight Ridge--have tarnished the glow of a Breeders’ Cup victory by coming right back to lose the very next race. For all the horses’ ability, the Breeders’ Cup effort took a greater toll than was readily apparent.

Recent events have reversed the trend, and 2-year-olds have been leading the way. Since running in Breeders’ Cup races on Nov. 4 at Gulfstream Park, three young colts and two fillies have whirled right back to improve on their Breeders’ Cup efforts.

On Sunday, the people behind five 2-year-old fillies will be hoping the trend continues in the $500,000 Hollywood Starlet Stakes. After running in either the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies or the Lady’s Secret Stakes earlier on the same day, Stella Madrid, Special Happening, Cheval Volant, Tasteful T.V. and Icy Folly will be tested again in the one-turn mile on the main track.

The Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, won by Rhythm, has been an especially key race this year. Grand Canyon, who finished second, romped in the Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes at Churchill Downs last Saturday. Later that same day, Single Dawn and Pleasant Tap, fifth and sixth to Rhythm, came home to California and finished 1-2 in the Hoist the Flag Stakes at Hollywood.

Two fillies who were well beaten by Go for Wand in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies have already run back. Voodoo Lily and Stacie’s Toy, 11th and 12th in Florida, were second and fifth Thursday at Aqueduct in the Palm Hut Stakes. In fact, the Wayne Lukas stable’s Voodoo Lily came within a nose of winning the seven-furlong event.

Tasteful T.V. and Icy Folly ran 1-2 in the seven-furlong Lady’s Secret, the first event on the Breeders’ Cup undercard. Bryan Mayberry trains Tasteful T.V. for Jan, Mace and Samantha Siegel.

“You always watch them close after shipping back and forth across the country before running again,” Mayberry said. “But it turned out to be a pretty easy race on her.

“The weather was fairly cool when we got there and never got terribly hot, like it can. And she proved she didn’t have to carry her track around with her.”

Since losing her debut in July, Tasteful T.V. has won her last three starts at three very different tracks: Gulfstream, Del Mar and Fairplex Park. In addition, Tasteful T.V. already acts older than her years, making Mayberry’s job that much easier.

“Everything she does, she does with consummate ease,” Mayberry said of the blaze-faced chestnut. “She was always one of the quiet ones, as opposed to our young horses with more flair. But she’s gone from strength to strength. She is the kind of filly you grow to rely on.”

Flush with the success of their Gulfstream Park foray--they won three other $100,000 stakes during the Breeders’ Cup weekend--the Siegels are putting up a $30,000 late fee to make Tasteful T.V. eligible for the Starlet. The last three winners of the race have been supplemented.

“She’s earned the right to run,” said Mace Siegel, whose MaceRich Corp. renovates and manages shopping malls. “We’ve always thought she was the best of our 2-year-old fillies.”

Tasteful T.V. will be ridden Sunday by Laffit Pincay.

“That’s one of the best things going for her,” Mayberry added. “Laffit had never even sat on her before the Florida race. Afterwards, he went out of his way to tell people how impressed he was with her. And he’s a man not easily impressed.”

Horse Racing Notes

El Gran Sid, the 10-time loser who finally broke his maiden on Nov. 9, made it two straight Thursday with a 1 3/4-length victory in the seventh race, leading from start to finish under Robbie Davis. . . . Spellbound, the winner of a division of the 1986 Hollywood Derby, is on the comeback trail for trainer Lewis Cenicola. Trivia buffs will recall how the lights at the track went out just as Spellbound and jockey Ray Sibille hit the wire at odds of 87-1 that evening. “We overloaded the whole plant!” Sibille proclaimed at the time.

A Crown Collection fan from the Westside noted an error in Wednesday’s item on the Alydar colt. His other controversial post-race test was after the Del Mar Futurity, not his maiden win. . . . Racing journalist Brough Scott of the BBC and the London Sunday Times was a Hollywood backstretch visitor Thursday morning. “I was just doing a piece on the Leonard-Duran fight and I thought I’d pop in here to do something with Sunday Silence before going home,” Scott said.

Icy Folly will be making her debut for owner Dan Agnew and trainer Jerry Fanning in the Starlet. The roan filly sold for $450,000 at the Eugene Klein dispersal. Tasteful T.V., on the other hand, was a $35,000 yearling purchase.