He Gets Double Dose of Disappointment : Big ‘Cap: Trainer McAnally sees his two horses finish last, confirming his worst fears.

On the morning of the Santa Anita Handicap, Ron McAnally should have been walking on air. Later that day, he would saddle both the favorite and the horse with the highest handicap weight in the million-dollar event. Given the chance, rival trainers would have been standing in line to trade places with the soft-spoken Kentuckian.

But McAnally was worried. He wanted it to rain so he could take advantage of Bayakoa’s superiority in the mud. He was worried about Ruhlmann, who was sure to throw a wrench into Bayakoa’s front-running style. And he wanted everyone to quit reminding him that a mare had never won the race. That he knew.

McAnally had reason to be worried.

It was bad enough that Bayakoa, McAnally’s champion mare, finished last as the favorite in the field of 10. And it was no less galling that Hawkster, his world-record setting turf horse and the highweight, finished next-to-last.

The result of the Handicap was especially distressing to McAnally because he knew that neither of them really belonged in the race.

“I’m not sure that this was my worst day as a trainer,” McAnally said. “But it was certainly one of them.”

McAnally was standing in the Santa Anita post-race testing barn, watching Bayakoa cool off after the worst race of her brilliant career. The mare appeared fine, but winded.

“Sometimes, you kind of feel pressured into doing something you don’t want to do,” McAnally said. “I felt a little like that going into this race.”

In the case of Hawkster, the pressure was overt. Owner Shelly Meredith, keen on proving Hawkster was as good on the dirt as he was on turf despite his two-for-14 record on the main track, insisted that his 4-year-old colt run in the Handicap over McAnally’s objections.

In the case of Bayakoa, the pressure was more subtle. McAnally was already in the record books as the first man to win the race twice with the same horse--John Henry in 1981-82. There was the temptation be the first to put a mare in the Big ‘Cap winner’s circle.

Although victorious in 10 of her last 11 starts, Bayakoa had never raced against males in this country and was a question mark at 1 1/4 miles. Previously, 35 mares had tried to win the Santa Anita Handicap, and only two had finished as high as second, the champions Gamely (1969) and Next Move (1951).

Frank Whitham, the Kansas rancher who races Bayakoa with his wife, Jan, acknowledged the challenge as the field left the walking ring before the race.

“We’ve bitten off a huge chore for her, that’s for sure,” Whitham said. “I hope she’s up to it.”

She wasn’t. Bayakoa, a front-runner, found herself more than six lengths off Ruhlmann’s pace as the field raced down the backstretch.

“That’s when I could tell we were in trouble,” Whitham said. “When Laffit (Pincay) had to ask her to run, she just didn’t have it. It was almost like she was saying, ‘I don’t like the way this is going. That’s it for today.’ ”

McAnally cringed as he watched Hawkster hounding Bayakoa through the stretch the first time and into the first turn.

“If Hawkster’s not in there, she doesn’t lose that ground around the turn and has a much better position,” McAnally said.

“I’m not saying it would have turned out any different, though,” McAnally added. “All week long I was worrying about Ruhlmann getting loose on the lead. I knew he would go out there fast, but I told Laffit he couldn’t worry about that. I was like everyone else--I didn’t think Ruhlmann could get the distance. But I was still worried about the affect he’d have on the way the race was run. When Charlie (Whittingham) runs a horse, you always have to respect him.”

To her credit, Bayakoa lasted longer than Hawkster. The colt raced forwardly and began to back up approaching the far turn, while the mare at least stayed with the pack to the quarter pole before Pincay took hold.

“It was Del Mar all over again,” said McAnally, referring to last summer’s Chula Vista Handicap, in which Bayakoa failed to shake early pressure and wilted.

After the Chula Vista, Bayakoa won the Ruffian Handicap, the Spinster Stakes and the Breeders’ Cup Distaff to nail down her Eclipse Award.

“How can you fault her?” Whitham said as he watched Bayakoa, acting as if he had let her down instead of the other way around. “I’m not upset. Disappointed, yes, but not upset.”

McAnally walked outside and looked to the sky, growing heavy with dark clouds.

“It figures,” he said. “In a few minutes she’ll be back in the barn, and then it will start to rain. Boy, I’ll be glad when this day is over.”