HOLLYWOOD PARK : Toro Takes His Final Ride Tonight

Fernando Toro has no trouble remembering his first mount.

“I was 15 years old and I didn’t know what I was doing,” he said. “I’d exercised a lot of horses in the morning, but that was all. I was the little guy and all the older riders were giving me a lot of advice, do this and don’t do that.”

Competing at the Hippodromo in Santiago, Chile, the nervous teen-ager finished third.

Thirty-four years and more than 27,600 mounts later, Toro is likely to be battling his nerves again tonight.

The Bull will ride for the last time in Hollywood Park’s seventh race, concluding a career during which he has won 3,572 races and more than $56.4 million in purses.

Fittingly, Toro will wrap things up on the turf, riding Exclusive Partner, a veteran himself at age 8, over a course on which the jockey has enjoyed many of his finest hours. The event is the $83,300 Fiesta Handicap, written specifically for the occasion.

A Southern California regular since 1970, Toro decided near the end of the Santa Anita meeting to retire. He returned to his native Chile, rode a few races there, picking up a victory--in late April.

He hasn’t ridden competitively since, although he has been working and galloping horses for trainer Richard Mandella for the last two weeks.

“I worked Fernando a mile this week and he blew a bit coming back,” said Mandella, a longtime friend whom Toro will be assisting when he retires before, eventually, going out on his own as a trainer.

“I hope he’s fit enough to win and they won’t test him after the race.”

Exclusive Partner and Toro have always been a good match. They teamed for an allowance victory March 1 at Santa Anita and last year scored victories in the Gold Cup Handicap in Louisiana and Keeneland’s Elkhorn Handicap.

“I know Mr. Mandella will have the horse ready,” Toro said. “I hope he runs well. If he wins. . . . well, that would be something.”

A victory in his farewell appearance would certainly become another highlight in a professional life that includes winning an unprecedented 40 turf races during the 1976 Hollywood Park meeting, winning the first Breeders’ Cup grass event aboard Royal Heroine in the 1984 Mile, and winning the 1986 Arlington Million on Estrapade.

Not hesitant to call Royal Heroine the best horse he has ever ridden, Toro recalls the week before the first Breeders’ Cup.

“I thought (trainer) John Gosden did a wonderful job with her,” he said. “She had all kinds of problems. It was always something--knees, ankles, feet. It was unbelievable.

“There was concern the whole week she wasn’t going to be able to make it. One day, she was going to run and the next day, she wasn’t. The day before the race, she wasn’t going to run. Then, Saturday morning, John said she was.

“When I got to the jockey’s room that day, I kept thinking I was going to get a call that she had been scratched. She ran a super race. That, and the (1984) Arlington Million where she finished second to John Henry were the best races she ever ran.”

Two years later, Estrapade carried Toro to success in Arlington Park’s biggest race on the way to an Eclipse Award.

“I remember having an inside post position and being concerned about not getting trapped down inside,” he said. “At the 5 1/2 (-furlong) pole, I went from fifth to the lead. I saw the opening and went for it and didn’t think twice about it.

“At the five-eighths pole, I was two in front. At the half-mile pole, I was three in front. That’s when I thought, ‘Oh . . ., I moved too soon.’ But, she proved me wrong. That was the right move. She was a very good mare.”

Fans might have trouble remembering thoroughbreds Ginger Brink and Shameen but races he won with each stand out in Toro’s memory.

“(Trainer Ted) West told me before the race (the second division of the 1983 Hollywood Derby) that (Ginger Brink) had ability, but he had to be taken back.

“At the head of the stretch, I was still last with him, but we were able to make it. When I came back, Mr. West said, ‘I told you to take him back, but you made me real nervous.’

“I don’t remember the date, but I was riding Shameen in a mile-and-a-sixteenth allowance race on the grass at Hollywood Park. It was a 12-horse field and we were last at the quarter pole. There were 11 horses in front of me, but I was able to get through inside all of them in about a sixteenth of a mile.”

Although he obviously enjoys reminiscing, Toro isn’t having any second thoughts about retirement.

“It would be very hard for my family (wife Lola, three daughters and two sons) to accept a change,” he said. “I couldn’t do anything different because they’re so happy. I’m comfortable it was the right decision. I’m 49, I’ve been doing this for 34 years and, although I’ve had accidents, there hasn’t been anything which is going to affect me for the rest of my life.

“I’m going to miss everything involved with riding. I still enjoy it very much and it’s always been a lot of fun, but I feel like I’m going to settle into my new life pretty easily. I’m not going to be bored. This will be the first summer I’ll have a vacation with my family.

“I’ve never considered myself a great rider. I was just doing my business the best way I could.”

Horse Racing Notes

Jimmy Kilroe, whose participation has been limited at Santa Anita since he suffered a stroke in April, 1989, has retired. A longtime force in Southern California racing, Kilroe has in recent years served as director of racing for Oak Tree and senior vice president/racing for the Los Angeles Turf Club. Tom Robbins succeeds Kilroe as director of racing for Oak Tree and Santa Anita and he has also been elected a vice president of the LATC.

Hollywood Park’s ceremony honoring Fernando Toro tonight will be after the fifth race. . . . Michelle Dollase, wife of jockey Corey Nakatani and the daughter of trainer Wallace Dollase, gave birth to 7-pound 8-ounce Brittany Marie Wednesday night.