HOLLYWOOD PARK : Melo Melody Pays Quick Dividend

Trainer Darrell Vienna claimed Melo Melody sight unseen. Now the 2-year-old filly is a sight for sore eyes.

Melo Melody went from the $32,000 claiming ranks to a stakes winner in about a month’s time, winning Wednesday’s $103,800 Moccasin Breeders’ Cup as Hollywood Park opened its 32-day fall meeting with a free-gate crowd of 13,609.

A total of 14,488 at satellite facilities helped account for an overall handle of $5.4 million, a record for a fall opener and about $1 million more than last year, when Santa Anita and Los Alamitos weren’t taking bets on the Hollywood races.

Overall attendance Wednesday was 28,097, which was an increase of almost 44% over the previous year. The largest off-track turnout this year was the 5,054 at Santa Anita, which also offered free admission. A sampling of other crowds showed 2,368 at Los Alamitos, 2,065 at Del Mar and 1,327 at San Bernardino. Crowds were under 1,000 at the 11 other off-track sites. The largest off-track handle was the $864,627 bet at Santa Anita.

On Oct. 17 at Santa Anita, the day Melo Melody ran for the first time, Bill Herrick and his son Joe were watching the races at the Del Mar satellite facility, near their Rancho Santa Fe homes. There was an overlap in the breeding of Melo Melody and Classy Women, a stakes-winning filly that the Herricks have with Vienna.

Late in the day, Joe Herrick called Vienna at his home near Santa Anita and said: “We want to claim Melo Melody, that filly who’s running in the ninth race.”

Vienna, who goes to law school at night, was about to leave for class.

“I don’t know if I can get over there in time, but I’ll try,” he told Herrick.

Claims for horses must be made 16 minutes before post time. Vienna said that he dropped his slip for Melo Melody into the claim box less than a minute before the deadline.

“This certainly wasn’t the normal way to claim a horse,” Vienna said.

Running for owner-breeder Verne Winchell and trainer Ron McAnally, Melo Melody won by eight lengths as the 3-1 favorite, then became the property of the Herricks. The filly is by Mr. Leader out of Classic Perfection, who produced the dam of both Classy Women and Tight Spot, the Winchell runner who has been one of the best grass horses in the country this year.

For the seven-furlong Moccasin, Melo Melody, known by the company she kept, got next to no credit for her maiden victory and was sent off at 18-1, second-longest price in the six-horse field. The 9-10 favorite, based on victories in her only two starts, was the McAnally-trained Captivant.

This time, Captivant was unable to get her way in the early part of the race, with Cappucino Bay, a 21-1 invader from Longacres, battling her for the lead under brisk fractions. Alex Solis, who was looking for his fourth triumph of the day and his third in as many races, had Melo Melody in third place, two to three lengths off the lead.

As the horses came out of the turn, Melo Melody passed Captivant and Cappucino Bay on the outside, and it became a question of whether Solis could hold on against Magical Maiden and Gary Stevens, who were charging in the stretch.

Melo Melody won by a head, with Magical Maiden finishing 2 1/2 lengths ahead of Golden Treat and Captivant running fourth, another 5 1/2 lengths back.

“On the turn, my filly was running really strong,” Solis said. “I had a lot of horse. This is the first time I was on her. I was supposed to ride her in her first race, but my first call got in and she was my second call.”

The Moccasin is a warmup for the $250,000 Starlet, at 1 1/16 miles on Dec. 21, and Stevens says that Magical Maiden can only improve with the added distance.

“She ran a big race,” he said. “I needed two more strides to win. If she comes out of this race good, she’s going to be tough in the Starlet. She got a little stirred up going to the gate, and it might have zapped her, taken away her punch a little bit. I was thinking through the stretch that she was going to give me another gear, and she never really gave it to me. She was just steadily coming.”

Earning $58,800, Melo Melody was timed in 1:23, paying $39 to win.

Asked if he was surprised at Melo Melody’s price, Vienna said: “With that ticket in my pocket, I can afford to be surprised. I must have gotten to the track in five minutes the day I claimed her. After I got her, I found out that she’s a very lazy work horse. She gave no indication to me that she might be anything. Mr. McAnally is not known as a fool, so I’m sure she worked the same way for him.”

Since she was claimed, Melo Melody had had four dull workouts.

“I ran her not because she was training extraordinarily well, but because she had run so well,” Vienna said.

Horse Racing Notes

Melo Melody is still green. She failed to change lead feet Wednesday. . . . At the top of the stretch in the ninth race, Alex Solis looked as though he might have a fifth winner. But his mount, Pretend I’m Slew, was outrun and finished third. . . . Solis has been flirting with crashing the top-10 national money list this year. . . . Peppermint Lane, a 2-year-old filly, won a maiden race on the first anniversary of the stall accident that led to the death of her sire, Alydar.