HOLLYWOOD PARK : Jones Hopes to Finish on High Note

After a dismal second half of 1989, trainer Gary Jones hopes his Argentine horse Happy Toss can help him end the season on a high note in Saturday’s Native Diver Handicap at Hollywood Park.

Although the race is worth only $64,100 to the winner, a victory would do wonders for the sagging spirits around the Jones stable, especially since the crew was flying so high earlier this year.

“We got off to an unbelievable start,” said Jones, the leading trainer at the 1989 Santa Anita winter meet. “Then the bottom fell out.”

Through mid-June, the Jones barn was cruising along in the high-rent district, firmly entrenched in fourth place in the national standings. The trainers ahead of him were Charlie Whittingham, Wayne Lukas, Shug McGaughey and Neil Drysdale.

Jones was third in the standings at the Hollywood Park summer meet, but then a grim Del Mar season took its toll. From stakes horses to maidens, a wave of illness and injury swept through his barn. By late August, Jones had dropped out of the national top 10.

A firm believer in the cyclic nature of horse racing, the 45-year-old Jones has visited nearly every spoke in the wheel.

At one point, about 16 years ago, he quit training to sell bloodstock. In 1981 he underwent successful rehabilitation for substance abuse. He also trained champion Turkoman, winner of the 1986 Marlboro Cup, and the brilliant Radar Ahead, who was the last horse to defeat Affirmed, horse of the year in 1979.

Two of Jones’ horses hold world records: Time to Explode for seven furlongs and Beautiful Glass for five furlongs on the grass. He has won major races with Fali Time, Eleven Stitches, Lightning Mandate, Hollywood Glitter, By Land by Sea and Seldom Seen Sue. And Jones trained the stakes mare Wishing Well, who later produced a colt named Sunday Silence.

Jones and his fellow trainers feed on the same hopes and dreams as the rest of the people involved in horse racing. At the same time, their constant exposure to day-to-day realities renders them coldly realistic about the game. Trainers recognize the absurdity of asking so much of such fragile, temperamental creatures.

Just last Wednesday, trainer Cotton Tinsley watched in horror as Hammerin’ Hank, his promising 2-year-old, tried to jump the inside rail on the far turn of the Hollywood turf course. His jump failed and he severed his right front leg and bled to death. It was little consolation to Tinsley that his other horse in the same race, Short Timer, went on to win.

“No one was very elated in the winner’s circle,” said Tinsley, who began training in 1957. “It was just one of those freak things, but you never get used to it. I don’t think people realize how close we get to these horses.”

Jones knows the feeling.

“A person can’t do what we do and not love the animal,” said Jones, a second generation trainer. “Seven days a week, 52 weeks a year. I finally had to force myself to take some time off just to be with my family. And wouldn’t you know it! My boys had gone and grown up on me.”

More than 20 years in the business has given Jones the resilience to buck almost any slump. And his sardonic, rapid-fire sense of humor never seems to fade. Asked to analyze the most recent performance of Happy Toss--a third-place finish behind Present Value in the Goodwood Handicap at Santa Anita on Oct. 21--Jones replied:

“I’d have to say he just got outrun. Of course, he had a high white count and was coughing the next day. So that might have had something to do with it, too.”

Happy Toss has raced only four times in this country. His best performance by far was in a Breeders’ Cup-sponsored race at Bay Meadows on Sept. 30. After a sloppy start, the 4-year-old South American colt kicked into overdrive and ran the mile and one-sixteenth in 1:39 4/5, winning by three lengths.

“If I’m talking to a racing secretary, I’ll say that was as good as the colt can run,” said Jones, fooling no one but still wary of weight assignments in handicaps.

“Realistically, though, I think he’s got some room to improve. He got a little break after the Goodwood, so if he runs his Bay Meadows race Saturday, he’s got a good chance to win. That is, unless Charlie’s horse decides to have one of his brilliant days.”

Jones was referring to the Charlie Whittingham-trained Ruhlmann, an enigmatic son of Mr. Leader whose 1989 campaign has paralleled the rise and fall of the Jones troops. Until sidelined by a lung infection last summer, Ruhlmann was among the top five handicap horses in the nation.

In his comeback race on Dec. 3, Ruhlmann finished fourth in a six-furlong sprint behind Olympic Prospect. If Whittingham can get Ruhlmann’s nerves under control, the Native Diver field could be in trouble. If not, the nine-furlong race is wide open.

Win or lose Saturday with Happy Toss, Jones can stop poor-mouthing. No one is listening anymore. Since going six for 42 at Del Mar and three for 29 at the Oak Tree meeting, Jones is rolling again with seven winners from just 24 starters at the current Hollywood meet. The wheel has turned, and the Jones stable has gone from being the Bermuda Triangle of the backstretch to the Gold Coast once again.

Horse Racing Notes

Corey Nakatani stayed home Thursday to nurse a bruised knee suffered when Hammerin’ Hank tried to jump the rail. The apprentice, tied for fourth in the standings, is listed as day to day. . . . Besides Happy Toss and Ruhlmann, the Native Diver field includes Lively One, Stylish Winner, Haut Arandu, No Marker, Perceive Arrogance and Dusty Mag.

In the wake of his victory in last Sunday’s Hollywood Futurity, Grand Canyon has been made the 8-1 Kentucky Derby Future Book favorite by a major Las Vegas casino. Farma Way, who finished a distant second, is 30-1. . . . Bayakoa, the country’s best older mare, stretched her legs with an easy three-furlong workout Thursday. She is not scheduled to run again until Feb. 4.

Entries for the opening-day card at Santa Anita next Tuesday will be taken Saturday. Expecting to top the field for the featured Malibu Stakes are Music Merci, Navajo Storm and Bruho.