HOLLYWOOD PARK : Caltech May Have Added Backers

It can be high-tech tomfoolery when the rapscallions at Caltech put their high-I.Q. minds to it. So, having previously bugged the scoreboard during the playing of a Rose Bowl game, is it possible that they would try to infest the tote board with gremlins Sunday when the Pasadena school’s namesake, a 3-year-old colt, runs in the $500,000 Hollywood Turf Cup?

That would be something, the odds on one of the race’s favorites suddenly changing to, say, 99-1, and every Caltech student at Hollywood Park looking as though they had just swallowed the canary. “That would be all right with me,” said David Romanik, a Hollywood, Fla., lawyer who owns one-third of Caltech. “That would give me more of a reason to bet on him than I already have.”

Romanik, an attorney for Gulfstream Park, has much to gain and hardly anything to lose in bringing Caltech all the way to California. Romanik and his partners got a thrifty ground-air package in shipping the horse out here for his California debut. They vanned him from South Florida to Lexington, Ky., for $2,800 and then, because Caltech flew from Kentucky with some horses that had just been auctioned at Keeneland, the rest of the tab was only $2,000.

Everything about Caltech has been a bargain. Romanik and the other owners--Bradford Beilly and his father, Stewart--bought the Florida-bred son of Explosive Bid and Starpiece as a yearling for $22,500, and a fifth-place finish at Gulfstream in the Breeders’ Cup Turf, worth $100,000, has increased his earnings to $707,970. Caltech has won six of 17 starts, the biggest victory being a wire-to-wire score at 13-1 in the Budweiser International at Laurel on Oct. 22.

Caltech’s owners were lucky even when he didn’t win. Early this year, they ran him at Calder twice for a $25,000 claiming price, but no other horsemen took him. He finished ninth the first time, then, making his debut on grass, won by 3 1/2 lengths.

The first claiming start was also scheduled to be Calder’s first race of the season, which meant that there was no chance Caltech’s owners would lose him, because the rules say a horseman must have started a horse at the meeting before he can make a claim. But then Terry Meyocks, Calder’s racing secretary, innocently shifted the Caltech race from the first to the fourth, forcing Romanik and the Beillys to sweat a little.

“I would have had heart failure if we had lost him that day,” Romanik said. “Then he won on the grass, and we knew he’d never run for a claiming price again. Not only did it tell us he’d be good on grass, it gave the horse confidence. I never knew there was such a thing as confidence for a horse, but there is. Now, this horse thinks he’s the toughest kid on the block. Even after the Breeders’ Cup, he was a handful getting him back to the barn.”

Caltech was only the second horse the 38-year-old Romanik has ever owned. The first, a colt named Zero Coupon, placed in a stake and earned about $30,000 before he was lost via the claiming route.

Leo Azpurua, whose brother, Eduardo, trains Caltech, cared for Zero Coupon.

“Zero Coupon was the kind of horse who ran well the first part of the year, then tailed off the more you ran him,” Romanik said. “The year we lost him, Leo said that we had better run him as much as we could from February to June, because he wouldn’t be any good after that.”

On the turf, where he has won five of seven starts, Caltech has been good from June until now, making his owners the envy of the Florida breeding business. “I’ve spent $20 million trying to get a horse like this, and here they get one on the second try,” said Arthur Appleton, the noted Florida breeder.

Dave Goldman, who bred Caltech, is also responsible for naming the colt. Shortly after Caltech was foaled, Goldman was watching a television program about space travel when the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the school were mentioned.

“Jet Propulsion Laboratory, that was too long,” Goldman said. “But the other name was perfect. With the California connection, I even figured that maybe somebody like (trainer) Wayne Lukas might come along and give us big bucks for him.”

Besides his breeding interests, Goldman is a part-time advertising man, a part-time racing columnist and a full-time character. Press-box pools and press-box hokum are his speciality. One day at Hialeah, there was a call for Dave Feldman, the Chicago turf reporter--except Goldman heard the announcement wrong and went to the phone.

“I didn’t know the guy from Adam,” Goldman said. “A real pain in the rear. But he thought I was Feldman and kept insisting that I should be giving him some horses to bet on for the next day’s card. So just to get rid of him, I give him a bunch of 30-1 shots and hung up.”

None of the horses did anything, and the same caller reached Feldman the next day. “He chewed Dave out for giving him a bunch of stiffs,” Goldman said.

Caltech is known for producing scientists, not handicappers, but Hollywood Park will try to corrupt some of its students and alumni by offering them free admission Sunday. The school has about 800 undergraduates and 1,000 graduate students, and about one-fourth of its 16,000 graduates live in the Southland.

“We heard about this horse earlier in the year,” a Caltech spokesman said. “We’re happy with the association. And we’re especially happy that they spelled his name the right way (as one word).”

Caltech may not win Sunday, but he is at least likely to be prominent. He usually runs close to the lead, and Eduardo Azpurua’s instructions to his jockey, Rene Douglas, will be to run as fast as he can for as far as he can in the 1 1/2-mile race, even though Hollywood Park’s grass course has been favoring closers this season.

Henry Carroll, who trains Yankee Affair, another of Sunday’s 10 starters, thought that the lack of any pressure helped the front-running Caltech win in the Budweiser International. Favored Yankee Affair finished second at Laurel, beaten by 1 3/4 lengths.

Caltech, 13-1 at Laurel, was 13-1 in winning the Lawrence Realization at Belmont Park and went off at 18-1 before taking the Manalapan Handicap at Calder in the race before that.

Bettors will not catch this colt at such a juicy price Sunday, unless those scamps from the real Caltech discover what makes Hollywood Park’s tote board tick.

Horse Racing Notes

Kent Desormeaux, the Maryland-based jockey who recently broke Chris McCarron’s record of 546 wins in one year, lost his Hollywood Turf Cup mount when Ten Keys came down with stomach sickness, but he will still ride at least four horses on Sunday’s program. Desormeaux plans to leave Maryland and ride in either New York or California next year, with latest reports indicating that there’s a 60-40 chance he’ll wind up in New York.

The field for the Turf Cup starts on the inside with Santangelo, an Argentine 5-year-old making his American debut. George Almeida has the mount. Outside them, in order, come Pleasant Variety, with Eddie Delahoussaye aboard; Hello Calder, Corey Black; Live the Dream, Alex Solis; Yankee Affair, Jose Santos; Caltech, Rene Douglas; Frankly Perfect, Chris McCarron; Star Lift, Gary Stevens; Charlatan, Laffit Pincay, and Master Treaty, Robbie Davis. . . . As 3-year-olds, Live the Dream and Caltech will carry 122 pounds, the others 126.

Three of the nine Turf Cups--the stake was split into divisions in 1982--have been won by 3-year-olds, the last being Alphabatim in 1984. . . . Three of the starters ran in the Breeders’ Cup, with Star Lift, the French horse making his American debut, finishing third, Caltech fifth and Pleasant Variety sixth. . . . Steinlen, winner of the Breeders’ Cup Mile, has clinched the male turf championship. . . . Caltech will be returning to Florida after running here. . . . McCarron is the only jockey to have won the Turf Cup twice, with Alphabatim and with John Henry in 1983.