HORSE RACING : Without Easy Goer in the Field, Why Must Calumet Run Criminal Type at Arlington?

Officials of Arlington International Racecourse in Chicago are suggesting Calumet Farm will be reneging if it doesn’t run Criminal Type in the Arlington Challenge Cup on Aug. 4.

Criminal Type isn’t out of the Arlington race until he’s out--that’s the way Yogi Berra might say it--but on Wednesday, after the announcement of Easy Goer’s ankle injury and retirement, both J.T. Lundy, the president of Calumet, and Wayne Lukas, Criminal Type’s trainer, all but said they wouldn’t be going to Chicago.

Last January, when Arlington announced the Challenge Cup, the presence of Easy Goer and Sunday Silence was going to make the stake worth $1 million. If one of them dropped out, the purse would drop to $600,000, and if neither ran, the pot would shrink to $250,000. Now, of the two, only Sunday Silence is running, and Criminal Type’s camp is not thrilled that the purse is only $600,000, even though the Calumet horse recently beat both Sunday Silence and Easy Goer.

This year, racing has become a sport that’s more about who’s not running than who’s running in races: Easy Goer, forced out of the Challenge Cup; Bayakoa, taken out of the Vanity Handicap at Hollywood Park because the weights weren’t right; Summer Squall, held out of the Belmont Stakes because he’s a bleeder and couldn’t receive his medication; and Grand Canyon, destroyed because of a circulatory hoof ailment.

Arlington International figures Calumet is obligated to the track to run Criminal Type, because the legendary Kentucky farm, along with the owners of five other horses, accepted invitations to the race earlier this month.

This is faulty reasoning. When Lundy said Criminal Type was coming, the purse was $1 million. Now that it’s $600,000, Lundy--or any other owner--should have the option of reconsidering. To carry Arlington’s flimsy logic one step further, would the track still expect Criminal Type to run if Sunday Silence were injured between now and race day and the purse dwindled to $250,000?

Arlington deserves credit for trying to put the Sunday Silence-Easy Goer race together, and then apparently getting Criminal Type, the colt-come-lately, as a bonus. But it goes with the territory in such ambitious ventures that a hitch in the perfect plan is only a phone call away. Arlington got that call from Shug McGaughey, Easy Goer’s trainer, this week.

Now, with Easy Goer gone, and probably Criminal Type, too, Arlington is down to Sunday Silence, last year’s horse of the year, and some horses who haven’t even been horse of the week, but the track should not be condemning Calumet Farm. These are the vagaries of horse racing and typical of the circumstances that also inhibit television’s romancing of the sport.

An ABC spokesman, hardly sounding enthusiastic, said Thursday that the network still will televise the Challenge Cup. “We have an obligation to the track,” he said.

ABC is looking at another hard sell on Aug. 18, when it will televise the Travers Stakes from Saratoga and the Frank De Francis Memorial Dash from Pimlico. Unbridled, winner of the Kentucky Derby, and Summer Squall, winner of the Preakness, are not running at Saratoga Springs, N.Y., and Housebuster, the crack sprinter, may not run at Pimlico. During the telecast, ABC could spend more time explaining the absentees than covering the races.

The question is being asked why Dick Duchossois, the multimillionaire owner of Arlington International, doesn’t keep his purse at $1 million.

“I don’t think he’s in a position to do that,” said Charlie Whittingham, who trains Sunday Silence as well as many of Duchossois’ horses in California. “They’ve cut the purses (for the rest of the season) once already there. If they took that extra $400,000 and put it into just one race, I doubt that it would set well. Dick has to live with all of those other horsemen the year round.”

The week produced at least one favorable development for racing. The Dogwood Stable syndicate that owns Summer Squall announced that the 3-year-old colt would run one more year before being retired to Will Farish’s Lane’s End Farm in Versailles, Ky..

Farish is one of the Dogwood syndicate members. Summer Squall, the second-place finisher in the Kentucky Derby who hasn’t run since his Preakness victory, is scheduled to run in the Pennsylvania Derby at Philadelphia Park on Sept. 3.

Steinlen, unable to put victories back to back this year, is the 8-5 favorite Saturday in the $500,000 Caesars International Handicap at Atlantic City, N.J.

Also in the eight-horse field are Yankee Affair, who is 7-2, and Capades, the 4-year-old filly who won the Matchmaker over the same course on July 11.

Steinlen, with Jose Santos riding, will carry high weight of 124 pounds, three more than Yankee Affair and Alwuhush. Two California-based jockeys are riding--Eddie Delahoussaye aboard Pleasant Variety and Robbie Davis handling Louis Cyphre, a French-raced horse making his American debut.

Horse Racing Notes

Broadway’s Top Gun drew the inside post in a field of nine for Saturday’s $100,000 Juvenile Championship, which launches the closing three days of the Hollywood Park meeting. Broadway’s Top Gun is undefeated in three starts. Others running in the six-furlong stake are the entry of Avenue of Flags and Best Pal; another entry, Iroquois Park and Deposit Ticket; Arkridge; Caught de Star; Stone God, and Sunshine Machine. . . . A small field, headed by Stalwart Charger and Silver Ending, is likely for Sunday’s $200,000 Swaps Stakes. And Petite Ile will be favored Monday in the $250,000 Sunset Handicap.

Polish Numbers, who won an allowance race at Monmouth Park, raced on Lasix, the bleeder medication. Ogden (Dinny) Phipps, the son of Polish Numbers’ owner, is chairman of the New York Jockey Club, which is at the forefront in running horses without medication. . . . “It’s good that his injury wasn’t life-threatening,” said Pat Day, who rode Easy Goer in all of his races. “At least, we can look forward to seeing his babies run.”

Don Robbins, general manager of Hollywood Park, said the track will ask the California Horse Racing Board to approve the running of 13 Friday-night programs next year. “The four we had this season were an unqualified success,” Robbins said. . . . Wonder how many fans will show up at Hollywood tonight, after the afternoon racing program? It’s the first Friday in five weeks that the track hasn’t run at night. “One Good Friday, we had a number of people show up, thinking we were racing,” Jim Williams, an official at Keeneland in Lexington, Ky., said recently. “One guy even drove all the way here from St. Louis.”