Stevens Loses One but Wins Another : Hollywood Park: Jockey is told he won’t ride Farma Way in the Hollywood Gold Cup June 29, but he bounces back by winning Silver Screen aboard Compelling Sound.

Gary Stevens has a way of burying his reverses quickly. That is one of the reasons he is over the $6-million mark in purses, leading the country again as he bids for a second consecutive national riding title.

On Sunday, the same day he learned that trainer Wayne Lukas had bounced him from the mount on Farma Way, Stevens was reunited with Compelling Sound, and they overtook Best Pal in the final 10 yards to win by a neck in the $158,800 Silver Screen Handicap before 41,251, the largest crowd of the Hollywood Park season.

Three weeks ago, Stevens sat in the Hollywood jockeys’ room and heard that In Excess, a mount he had forsaken, had won the $500,000 Metropolitan Handicap at Belmont Park. A few hours later, Stevens won with Exbourne, the horse he stayed home to ride in the $500,000 Hollywood Turf Handicap.

Lukas’ jockey switch on Farma Way, from Stevens to Chris McCarron for the $1-million Hollywood Gold Cup June 29, came after a harsh, week-long critique by the trainer of the way Stevens rode the horse-of-the-year candidate in last Saturday’s Nassau County Handicap at Belmont.

Farma Way got into a speed duel with Jolie’s Halo and had nothing left through the stretch, finishing third behind Festin and Gervazy.

Stevens, who gave Lukas his only Kentucky Derby winner when he got Winning Colors, a filly, to the wire a neck in front of Forty Niner in 1988, will continue to ride many of Lukas’ horses. In his position, a jockey can say little, and that’s what Stevens did Sunday when asked about losing Farma Way. Stevens has picked up the mount on Anshan, who will be a longshot in the Gold Cup.

“I have nothing to say,” Stevens said. “I’ve got another mount and I’m looking forward to beating the other horse.”

Pat Valenzuela and Stevens have been intertwined with horses since Valenzuela’s return from a drug-related suspension earlier this season.

Valenzuela went to New York for In Excess’ Metropolitan victory, and Sunday he finished second with Best Pal, the horse Stevens had been riding. Stevens got back on Compelling Sound after Valenzuela had ridden the 3-year-old son of Seattle Slew to victory on the grass in the Will Rogers.

“This was a decision (Stevens’ option of riding Compelling Sound) that was made a month and a half ago,” Stevens said. “My commitment was to ride Best Pal through the Triple Crown.”

Best Pal is winless in his last five races, dating to a victory in the Hollywood Futurity more than six months ago. Sunday was his third second-place finish in the last four starts, the other runner-up finishes coming in the Santa Anita and Kentucky derbies.

Best Pal followed Caliche’s Secret, the pacesetter, until the turn for home. After Valenzuela made the lead, Compelling Sound appeared to be beaten, with three lengths to make up an eighth of a mile before the finish. Even Stevens wasn’t sniffing victory then.

“I didn’t think there was much chance,” Stevens said. “I don’t know if Best Pal hung. Even with 20 yards left, I didn’t like my chances, but then my horse started lengthening his stride.”

Compelling Sound, who is owned by Jerry Moss and trained by Charlie Whittingham, ran 1 1/8 miles in 1:47 4/5, the fastest time at that distance this season.

Going off as the second choice to the 9-10 Best Pal, the winner paid $5.60 to win, earning $91,300 for his fourth victory in seven starts.

Best Pal finished 3 1/2 lengths in front of Caliche’s Secret, who was five lengths better than Pillaring. Key Recognition was last in the five-horse field.

Compelling Sound carried 118 pounds, five fewer than Best Pal and a difference that Ian Jory, Best Pal’s trainer, had underscored both before and after the race. Best Pal carried 126 pounds in the Kentucky Derby and for his fifth-place finish in the Preakness, but that was at equal weights with the opposition.

“This was a lot of weight for my horse to carry going that far,” Jory said Sunday. “It was too many pounds to be giving a horse of that caliber. I think the weights told through the stretch.”

Compelling Sound could have taken Whittingham back to the Kentucky Derby, but a seventh-place finish in the Santa Anita Derby dashed that thought.

“I would have been playing catchup if we had gone to Kentucky,” Whittingham said. “The two times I’ve won the (Kentucky) Derby (with Ferdinand in 1986 and Sunday Silence in 1989), it was with horses who were ahead. Whenever you have a doubt about a horse going into a race, you usually don’t win, so there was no sense going back there with this horse.”

The founder of a record company with Herb Alpert many years ago, Moss bought Compelling Sound as an unraced 2-year-old for $450,000.

“This horse is going to be a lot of fun,” Moss said Sunday. “He’s sound as a bell, and I think that’s an outstanding time, because the track really hasn’t been playing that fast.”

A rematch is likely between Compelling Sound and Best Pal in the 1 1/4-mile Swaps July 7. “If we won, we were going to try the Swaps,” Whittingham said. “If we hadn’t won, it would have been back to the grass for this horse.”

Festin might not run in the Hollywood Gold Cup. Trainer Ron McAnally is considering the New England Classic, a $500,000, 1 1/8-mile race at Rockingham Park July 20.

The field will be easier to beat at Rockingham--only Jolie’s Halo among the top handicap horses is expected to show up--and the race, like the Gold Cup, is also part of the American Championship Racing Series, which offers a $750,000 bonus to the owner of the horse with the most points for finishes.

Festin leads the standings with 30 points after five of the 10 races, with Farma Way next at 25 points.

If McAnally ships his horse to Rockingham, Eddie Delahoussaye would be able to ride Prized in the Gold Cup and Festin in the Classic.

If both horses run in the Gold Cup, Prized’s owners have Laffit Pincay backing up Delahoussaye.

A member of the Hollywood Park board, who didn’t want his name used, said Sunday that Merv Griffin has resigned as a director.

Griffin was one of the supporters of Marje Everett, who resigned earlier this year as chief executive officer after a proxy fight that cost shareholders about $10 million and resulted in R.D. Hubbard becoming president of the track.

Aaron Spelling and Stan Seiden were other Everett supporters who are no longer on the board. John Forsythe and Allen Paulson, who favored Everett, are still on the board, as is Bruce McNall, who backed Everett before distancing himself from both sides in the proxy battle.

Sunday’s crowd was the biggest daytime turnout since 41,531 attended on May 7, 1988, the day of the Kentucky Derby. There was a crowd of 42,612 the night the track honored Bill Shoemaker in 1989.