HOLLYWOOD PARK : Best Pal, Compelling Sound Renew Rivalry Sunday in Grade II Swaps

With Hansel and Strike The Gold, the big guns from the Triple Crown series, awaiting their next assignments back East, some of the less successful survivors are trying to retool their images at Hollywood Park.

Hansel, a puzzling 10th in the Kentucky Derby and winner of the Preakness and Belmont Stakes, is at Arlington International Racecourse, where his trainer, Frank Brothers, is considering races there as well as the Travers in mid-August at Saratoga. Strike The Gold, winner of the Derby before running sixth in the Preakness and second in the Belmont, will be based at Saratoga, where he might run in the Jim Dandy, three weeks before the Travers.

At Hollywood Park, Compelling Sound, a colt who wasn’t running well enough to enter the Kentucky Derby, and Best Pal, a gelding not quite good enough in the Derby and badly beaten in the Preakness, have already battled once, and the next round in their rivalry Sunday will be spiced by the first appearance of Corporate Report since the Triple Crown. The race is the $200,000 Swaps, which also has an image problem, having been reduced from a Grade I to a Grade II stake two years ago.

All this Swaps has is a quartet--Compelling Sound, Best Pal, Corporate Report and Pillaring, winner of two of 14 starts and a distant fourth in the Silver Screen Handicap three weeks ago, when Compelling Sound made up six lengths in the stretch and beat Best Pal by a neck.

A couple of days after the Silver Screen, John and Betty Mabee, who own Best Pal, took their horse away from trainer Ian Jory and transferred him to Gary Jones, a more established trainer who has had success with other Mabee horses. Jones has won the Swaps twice for other owners, with Padua in 1985 and Radar Ahead in 1978.

Jory will watch Best Pal run Sunday for the first time since the horse left his barn. “I hope he wins,” the trainer said Friday. “I hope he goes on to do great things. He wouldn’t make me look bad if he did.”

Jory envisions a long career for Best Pal, who has no chance of being rushed off to a stud farm, as are many horses when they are at the peak of their competitive careers. Geldings escape the economic realities of the horse business.

“He’s an awfully sound horse,” Jory said. “When I had him, I thought I had the next John Henry. But I’ll always remember him just for what he’s already done. He made us famous.”

John Henry, another smallish gelding, raced until he was a 9-year-old, earning a then-record $6.5 million and winning two horse-of-the-year titles.

And like John Henry, Best Pal is a horse lightly regarded from the beginning. Before he ever ran, Best Pal was gelded, no one suspecting the potential value he might someday have as a stallion. He was given to Jory, one of the most obscure of several trainers the Mabees employ. And he was not nominated to prestigious races such as the Breeders’ Cup and the Hollywood Futurity. The Mabees paid $50,000 in penalties to make him eligible for the $1-million Hollywood race, and Best Pal earned $495,000 by winning it.

That was Best Pal’s sixth victory in eight starts as a 2-year-old, the victory shoving him over the $1-million mark. But this year, the best he could do in five starts has been three seconds--in the Santa Anita Derby, the Kentucky Derby and finally the Silver Screen.

Jory was not completely surprised by the change. “There were rumors even before the Kentucky Derby,” he said. “Something was on the wall. It was tough, but it was one of those things. It’s something that happens (to other trainers) all the time.”

John Mabee has declined to give a specific reason for the switch, saying only that it was “in the best interests of the horse.”

In the Silver Screen, with weights assigned by Eual Wyatt, Hollywood Park’s racing secretary, Compelling Sound carried 118 pounds, five fewer than Best Pal. The Swaps weights are based on money earned this year, so Compelling Sound will carry 123 pounds and Best Pal 114, a swing of 14 pounds in the gelding’s favor. Corporate Report and Pillaring also will carry 114 pounds apiece.

“If the weights add up, Best Pal ought to win by four lengths,” Jory said.

Jory continues to train other horses for the Mabees, including Splendid Career, who is on a four-race winning streak. Splendid Career, a 5-year-old gelding, won four of 12 starts in England and ran for claiming prices of $50,000 and $80,000 in California before he started winning at Santa Anita in March.

“He’s the best horse I have now, the best by far,” Jory said. “He’s a horse who elevated himself overnight.”

That’s a description that fit Best Pal a year ago.

Horse Racing Notes

Gary Stevens will ride Compelling Sound; Pat Valenzuela will be aboard Best Pal; Chris McCarron has the mount on Corporate Report, and Alex Solis will be astride Pillaring in the Swaps, which is 1 1/4 miles. . . . Corporate Report, ninth in the Kentucky Derby, second in the Preakness and fourth in the Belmont, was one of four horses that ran in all of the Triple Crown races. The others were Hansel, Strike The Gold and Mane Minister, who finished third in all three. . . . Like Best Pal, Corporate Report hasn’t won in his last five starts. Unraced as a 2-year-old because of a leg injury, Corporate Report has earned $327,908 without winning a stakes race. . . . Compelling Sound has won three in a row at the Hollywood meeting, the first two on grass.

On one hand, the owners of Lite Light are doing the sporting thing by going back to Belmont Park for today’s Coaching Club American Oaks rematch with Meadow Star. On the other hand, they could be painting themselves into a corner. Another Meadow Star victory would virtually clinch the Eclipse Award for 3-year-old fillies without her even running in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff. If Meadow Star wins today, Lite Light could win the Distaff without her, and some Eclipse voters--starting with those in New York--will suggest that Lite Light needs Lasix, the bleeders’ medication, to win.

In the wake of In Excess’ tour de force Thursday, Belmont Park is still playing extremely fast. On a sloppy track Friday, Salt Lake won the Tremont Breeders’ Cup Stakes for 2-year-old fillies by eight lengths, running 5 1/2 furlongs in 1:03 and tying the track record. Salt Lake, from trainer Wayne Lukas’ barn, is a $170,000 Deputy Minister yearling who won her other start by 12 lengths. The track record for 5 1/2 furlongs was set by Raise A Cup in 1973 and matched by Ruffian a year later. On July 6, 1975, Ruffian broke down during her match race with Kentucky Derby winner Foolish Pleasure and failed to survive surgery.

Hollywood Park will take bets Sunday on the telecast from Woodbine of the Queen’s Plate, the first race in the Canadian Triple Crown. Nine 3-year-olds are entered, with the entry of Dance Smartly, Rainbows For Life and Wilderness Song the 6-5 favorite. Dance Smartly, to be ridden by Pat Day, is a filly, as is Wilderness Song, who will be ridden by Francine Villeneuve, the second female to ride in the race. The plate is restricted to Canadian-bred horses, and although British Banker qualifies, this will be his first start outside the United States. He will be ridden by Sandy Hawley, who has won the Plate four times, all in the 1970s.