HOLLYWOOD PARK : Irate McAnally Is Facing Weighty Decision--to Run Bayakoa or Skip Vanity Handicap

Ron McAnally spent his 58th birthday Wednesday hanging around the Buenos Aires airport, waiting for a plane home and doing some long-distance fuming over the weights for Sunday’s Vanity Handicap at Hollywood Park.

The trainer had braced himself to swallow the 128-pound assignment on his champion mare, Bayakoa, who carried 127 to victory in the Milady Handicap last month. But what bothered McAnally was the four-pound spread between Bayakoa and arch-rival Gorgeous, who will carry 124 pounds in the nine-furlong Vanity.

The last time they met, in the Apple Blossom Handicap at Oaklawn Park on April 18, Gorgeous carried 122 pounds and beat Bayakoa, at 126, by 2 3/4 lengths. Bayakoa has won the Hawthorne and Milady handicaps at Hollywood Park since then, while Gorgeous has run only once, finishing eighth to males in the Pimlico Special on May 12.

After arriving in Los Angeles today, McAnally will confer again with Bayakoa’s owner, Frank Whitham, regarding the Vanity weights. But because there was no adjustment in relation to Gorgeous, there exists a real possibility that McAnally and Whitham will skip the race and go shopping around the country.

“The last thing in the world we want to do is abuse the mare,” Whitham said Tuesday from the offices of his cattle-feed company in Leoti, Kan. “There must be a race somewhere against colts where she’d get a break in the weights.”

If Whitham and McAnally do go looking for spots to run Bayakoa, chances are there’s a race track somewhere ready to raise a purse and lower the weight to accommodate their concerns. Although Bayakoa is not a marquee draw on a par with Sunday Silence or Easy Goer, she comes close.

On the other hand, if Bayakoa stays home to run in the Vanity, she will have a chance to elevate her reputation to an even higher plateau. Already, she is one of only five mares to earn more than $2 million. But money measures do not mean as much in these days of higher purses. What continues to separate the great horses is a combination of speed, weight and longevity.

Consider the following:

--The last horse to win a major stakes race in California with 128 or more pounds was the McAnally-trained John Henry, who carried 130 in the 1982 Santa Anita Handicap. Even that requires an asterisk. John Henry was beaten a nose by Perrault, who was disqualified for interference.

--The last mare to win a major California race under at least 128 was Kilijaro, who did it three times in 1981. She won the San Gorgonio Handicap under 128, the Palomar Handicap under 129 and a division of the Autumn Days Handicap under 130.

--The last horse to even carry as much as 128 in a top California handicap was reigning horse of the year Ferdinand, who finished second under that load in the 1988 San Antonio at Santa Anita.

Throughout North American racing, weight assignments in the high 120s and low 130s have virtually disappeared in recent years. Since there is no requirement for participation in specific events, crushing loads and huge weight spreads can be avoided with a little travel--and a little pressure on economic pulse points, as owners and trainers pit one track against another for opportunities to showcase the stars of the game.

Such widely praised champions as Alysheba, Personal Ensign, Precisionist, Manila and Snow Chief went their entire careers without carrying more than 127 pounds.

Most trainers insist that it’s not the weight a horse carries that matters, as much as the weight given away to the opposition. Of all mainstream professional sports, only racing attempts to equalize its competitors by burdening the best with added dead weight. Does Will Clark leave the donut on his bat when he steps in against a frightened rookie pitcher? Does the NFL make Joe Montana wear lead-lined thigh pads when the 49ers play the Falcons?

In her 1967 book “Weight on the Thoroughbred Racehorse,” historian Irene McCanliss scoffs at the importance of handicap races. She writes: “The whole setup of racing history contradicts any assumption that the handicap weighted race . . . is the criterion by which a racehorse is to be judged.”

McCanliss goes on to quote one Admiral Rous, a mid-19th Century English racing official who is credited with the establishment of the weight-for-age scale. He, too, thought very little of arbitrary handicaps: “A handicap is intended to encourage bad horses, and to put them on a par with the best,” Rous insisted. “It is a racing lottery--a vehicle for gambling on an extensive scale, producing the largest field of horses at the smallest expense.”

And still, the United States continues to revere its handicaps, imbuing them with championship overtones and million-dollar purses. As a result, American racing lore is filled with such flukes as Stagehand (100 pounds) beating Seabiscuit (130) in the 1938 Santa Anita Handicap, Beau Purple (115) beating Kelso (132) in the 1962 Suburban Handicap, and Great Contractor (112) beating Forego (137) in the 1977 Brooklyn Handicap.

Most fans wonder why thoroughbred racing finds itself continually embroiled in debates over arbitrary weight assignments. In most sports--in real life, for that matter--four pounds are relatively meaningless. Bayakoa, who weighs about 1,000 pounds, is being asked to carry what amounts to the weight of an ordinary blender, an average metropolitan phone book or half a bag of cat litter.

But four pounds also is the approximate weight of an Eclipse Award statue, which is what truly separates the remarkable bay mare from her contemporaries. Bayakoa is continuing to pay the price for a superiority she has richly earned.

Horse Racing Notes

Chris McCarron has made a couple of visits to the Hollywood Park stable area in the past week. The jockey said he is ahead of schedule in his recovery from two broken legs and a broken arm, sustained in a spill at Hollywood Park on June 3. “When I started rehabilitation, I told my physical therapist that I wanted to be riding again by early October,” McCarron said. “A few days later, he said I’d be ready a lot sooner than that.”

Ron McAnally was in South America completing the purchase of a leading Argentine colt.

Wayne Gretzky’s and Bruce McNall’s John Henry Handicap winner, Golden Pheasant, is scheduled to run in the Eddie Read Handicap on Aug. 12 at Del Mar, three weeks before a date in the Arlington Million.