HOLLYWOOD PARK : Summer Squall Makes Local Debut

Neil Howard, who trains Summer Squall, is not enthusiastic about flying.

“When it’s your turn to go, then it’s your turn to go,” Susan Howard once said to her husband, trying to get him to take a more positive attitude. “That’s fine,” Howard said. “But what happens when it’s the turn of the guy sitting next to me (on the plane)? Does that mean that it’s got to be my turn, too?”

Howard flew to Los Angeles from his Kentucky headquarters last Sunday night, arriving a few days after Summer Squall was flown here to run in Saturday’s $1-million Hollywood Gold Cup. Neither horse nor trainer is that familiar with Hollywood Park. Summer Squall has run his 15 races at eight tracks, and his 11 victories have come at six of them, but the Gold Cup will be his first appearance west of Kentucky. Howard has saddled only one horse in California, finishing seventh with Weekend Delight, a 2-year-old filly, in one of the inaugural Breeders’ Cup races at Hollywood Park in 1984.

Summer Squall seems to have become acclimated quickly, working five furlongs in a quick 59 4/5 seconds Monday. “It’s more difficult to come West with a horse than it is to go East,” said Cot Campbell, who manages the 27-member Dogwood Stable syndicate that owns Summer Squall. “But this is an adaptable horse. He’s not complicated to ship or to handle. We think the extra seasoning will help him against Farma Way this time.”

Thursday, when nine horses were entered for the 1 1/4-mile Gold Cup, Russell Hudak, the track linemaker, made Farma Way the 2-1 favorite and listed Summer Squall as the 5-2 second choice.

Here is the way the field lines up, in post-position order, with jockeys, weights and morning-line odds: Roanoke, Laffit Pincay, 115 pounds, 6-1; Prized, Eddie Delahoussaye, 120, 6-1; Farma Way, Chris McCarron, 122, 2-1; Western Playboy, Kerwin Clark, 113, 30-1; Summer Squall, Pat Day, 122, 5-2; Anshan, Gary Stevens, 115, 8-1; Music Prospector, Julio Garcia, 110, 50-1; Marquetry, David Flores, 110, 12-1, and Itsallgreektome, Corey Nakatani, 119, 6-1.

This is the sixth event in the 10-race American Championship Racing Series, a cross-country string of stakes with $8.25 million in purses and bonuses. Based on a point system for high finishes, the owner of the horse with the most points at the end of the series will receive $750,000.

Festin, winner of two of the races and the leader with 30 points, is not running Saturday because his trainer, Ron McAnally, says he doesn’t think that Hollywood Park’s speed-favoring track fits the horse’s late-running style. Farma Way is the next horse in the standings with 25 points, and Summer Squall, who finished second--three lengths behind Farma Way--in the Pimlico Special, has seven points.

Summer Squall, after running second to Unbridled in last year’s Kentucky Derby and reversing the order of finish in the Preakness, earned $1.2 million as a 3-year-old and wintered in South Carolina. He had run only one race this year, a victory in an allowance at Keeneland, before taking on Farma Way at Pimlico. Farma Way had been in training all winter, winning five consecutive races at Santa Anita, including the Santa Anita Handicap.

“We had an unseasoned horse at Pimlico,” Campbell said. “All he had was that sprint race before the Special. I don’t know if anybody could have beaten Farma Way that day (the winner broke the track record for 1 3/16 miles), but if our horse had had another race under his belt, we would have had a better chance.”

Summer Squall has bled from the lungs, a condition that compromises his schedule because in New York rules prohibit the use of Lasix, a diuretic commonly used to treat bleeders. Two of the races in the championship series--the Nassau County Handicap that Festin won three weeks ago and the Woodward Stakes that ends the series on Sept. 15--are in New York.

Last year, Summer Squall finished second to Unbridled in the Eclipse Award voting for best 3-year-old colt. Summer Squall beat Unbridled two of the three times they met, but Unbridled clinched the title by defeating older horses in the Breeders’ Cup Classic in October at Belmont Park, with Summer Squall not running because of New York’s Lasix rule.

Summer Squall and Unbridled are vivid examples of the quandary in which trainers find themselves because of bleeders. Unbridled also has bled. After winning in New York without Lasix, he bled profusely despite racing with the medication in the Pimlico Special and hasn’t run since. Lasix also didn’t keep Summer Squall from bleeding when he ran eighth in last year’s Meadowlands Cup, the worst performance of his career.

Some trainers monitor their bleeders closely, an example being Frank Brothers with Hansel, winner of this year’s Preakness and Belmont Stakes. Neil Howard, however, says Summer Squall is seldom checked with an endoscope for bleeding.

“Our veterinarians agree that there is no need to be checking a horse all the time,” Howard said. “I think if you scope a horse four times a week, you could drive him crazy. That’s a delicate area to be sticking tubes in. Unless there are signs (of bleeding), we don’t scope Summer Squall. He’s been running good, he’s been eating good and he’s doing well. I’d just as soon leave sleeping dogs lie.”

Horse Racing Notes

Chris McCarron, who got the mount on Farma Way because trainer Wayne Lukas was unhappy with Gary Stevens’ ride in the Nassau County Handicap, hasn’t won a Gold Cup in 10 tries, but he has finished second eight times. . . . Laffit Pincay, who has ridden in 18 Gold Cups, needs one more victory to tie Bill Shoemaker, who won the stake a record eight times. . . . Eddie Delahoussaye, who has won the race three times in eight tries, scored his first victory in 1980 with Go West Young Man, the only gray horse to win the race. Itsallgreektome is the only gray in Saturday’s field.

In a three-hour hearing Thursday before an administrative law judge, Pincay testified regarding a five-day suspension that Chris Antley received from the stewards after the Santa Anita Handicap on March 9. Antley, who has appealed the ruling, is based in New York and didn’t appear at the hearing, but his attorney, Richard Craigo, gave the jockey’s version on tape. Pincay was unseated from his horse, My Boy Adam, on the far turn. Antley rode Defensive Play, who finished sixth. Craigo said the referee might have a decision in two or three weeks.

The Gold Cup, which will be nationally televised by ABC, is the fourth race on the card. Track officials were unwilling to go along with a request by the network that the Gold Cup be the second race. . . . Seabiscuit won the first Gold Cup, in 1938.

There are two other stakes on Saturday’s program. In the $100,000 Triple Bend Handicap at seven furlongs, Timebank is the high weight at 120 pounds. Others running are Tanker Port, Bruho, Sam Who, Black Jack Road, Blue Eyed Danny and Robyn Dancer. The $75,000 Jim Murray Handicap at 1 1/2 miles on grass has drawn 12 horses, with Somethingdifferent the high weight at 120 pounds. . . . In a 1 1/16-mile handicap, Flying Continental will return to action under 122 pounds against five opponents. Flying Continental, ninth in the Santa Anita Handicap, has earned $1.5 million.