Meadow Star Beats Lite Light by a Nostril : Horse racing: She wins second leg of New York’s filly triple crown as Southland-based horse stumbles from gate, bleeds slightly while racing without Lasix.

“Mother of All Gooses,” the Daily Racing Form’s bold headline read, quoting trainer LeRoy Jolley.

Jolley was right. Less than 24 hours after Belmont Park fans thrilled to Hansel’s victory by a head over Strike The Gold in the Belmont Stakes, the track ran the Mother Goose for the 35th time. The crowd was only 16,784, about a third of what it was Saturday, but they seemed to make more noise as Jolley’s Meadow Star and Lite Light, the best fillies in the land, thundered to the wire in a race that was even closer than the Belmont.

The Racing Form’s chart will show Meadow Star’s winning margin as a nose, but that’s really overstating the result. It took the placing judges six minutes to decide before they awarded the victory to Meadow Star, the winner by less than an inch.

After the race, however, Lite Light’s lungs were scoped and a New York veterinarian said that she bled. Lite Light also bled at Belmont after running 12th in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies last year. Bleeders in most other states are treated with Lasix for their condition, but New York rules prohibit racing on any drugs.

“She bled a little,” trainer Jerry Hollendorfer said about Lite Light. “On a scale of one to 10, it was about a three, but even a one would be too much, under the circumstances. But we do not want to construe this in any way as an excuse. We got beat fair and square.”

Strike The Gold unsuccessfully tried to catch Hansel in the Belmont; Lite Light, after a poor start, drew alongside Meadow Star with three-eighths of a mile to go and they virtually matched strides the rest of the way.

Meadow Star, carrying 121 pounds, the same as Lite Light, earned $120,000 of the $200,000 Mother Goose purse and her owner, Carl Icahn, also won a $35,000 side bet that he made with the M.C. Hammer family, which owns Lite Light. Icahn, the chairman of Trans World Airlines, contributes his share of Meadow Star’s purses to the Children’s Rescue Fund, a charity he began, and the filly has been responsible for bringing in close to $1 million.

Lite Light’s owners, known for backing their horses at the betting windows, might have tilted the Belmont tote board with late action on their filly. Two minutes before post time, the odds on Lite Light quickly went from 4-5 to 1-2 to 1-5. Meadow Star, who had been 3-5, went up to 6-5.

Meadow Star went off at 4-5 and paid $3.80 and $2.10, with no show betting on the four-horse field. Lite Light, the 1-2 favorite, paid $2.10 to place. Nalees Pin, who ran third, finished 15 1/2 lengths behind Lite Light and there was only a nose difference between her and Risen Colony. Meadow Star’s time for 1 1/8 miles was 1:48 4/5.

Corey Nakatani, who rode Lite Light, stood on the track while the tote-board numbers of the two horses blinked and guessed that his mount had won the race. Jolley agreed with the rival jockey. “I thought my filly’s head was up and the other filly’s head was down (at the wire) at the end,” Jolley said.

Both Hollendorfer and Nakatani thought that the bad start contributed to defeat. Hollendorfer’s strategy was for Nakatani to have Lite Light running slightly behind Meadow Star in the early going. Instead, Lite Light was last going down the backstretch, four lengths behind, as Meadow Star, on the lead, was able to get away with the first half-mile in a slow 49 2/5.

“We had a slow break,” Nakatani said. “My filly broke awkward, and just after the break, my filly also stumbled. I knew the pace was slow, that’s the reason I moved (on Meadow Star) when I did. We were head and head through the stretch. I thought I got her (Meadow Star) in the last jump, but the wire (photo) showed different.”

Meadow Star was ridden by Jerry Bailey, who completed a spectacular week at Belmont. Bailey won four stakes in five days, including the Mother Goose, the Belmont with Hansel and the Riva Ridge with Fly So Free.

Meadow Star won her 11th race in 12 starts. The only race she has lost was against colts, a fourth-place finish in the Wood Memorial at Aqueduct in April.

Meadow Star has won the Acorn and the Mother Goose and would become the seventh horse to sweep New York’s triple crown for 3-year-old fillies if she wins the 1 1/4-mile Coaching Club American Oaks here July 6.

Hollendorfer and Lite Light’s owners had been considering staying at Belmont for the Coaching Club, but after the bleeding was detected late Sunday, they decided to return the filly to California.

“I’ve had a lot of experience with this situation, and we know we’re doing what’s best for the horse,” Hollendorfer said.

Lite Light had won four consecutive races--three since the Hammer family bought her for a reported $1.2 million--going into the Mother Goose.

Jolley has no immediate plans to run Meadow Star against colts again. “We’s just got our hands full with Lite Light,” he said. “In the short term, at least, we’ll let her stay with the fillies.”

Horse Racing Notes

Frank Brothers, who trains Hansel, left New York Saturday night without announcing plans for his Preakness-Belmont winner. Hansel will be shipped to Brothers’ barn at Arlington International Racecourse in Chicago on Tuesday. . . . Strike The Gold, the Kentucky Derby winner, probably will run in the Haskell at Monmouth Park July 27 and the Travers at Saratoga in August, according to trainer Nick Zito. . . . Mane Minister, the first horse to finish third in all of the Triple Crown races, is headed back to Hollywood Park, where after a short rest he might run in the Travers or the Super Derby at Louisiana Downs. . . . Green Alligator’s next-to-last finish in the Belmont was caused in part by a low-grade infection that caused a heavy mucous problem. “It’s similar to severe bleeding, but instead of blood it’s mucous,” trainer Murray Johnson said.