HOLLYWOOD PARK : Miss Alleged Will Attempt to Add Turf Cup to Breeders’ Cup Victory

Miss Alleged wasn’t even supposed to run in the Breeders’ Cup Turf at Churchill Downs on Nov. 2. Only 14 horses are allowed to run, and at pre-entry time Miss Alleged was 16th on the preference list.

Gibson Downing, an angry owner with a horse lower on the list than Miss Alleged, threatened to take the Breeders’ Cup to court over the rule, then backed off.

At least Downing’s horse, Cameroon, had won four races this year. Had Miss Alleged’s owner gone to court over his horse, the judge might have laughed, because she was winless in six 1991 starts and hadn’t won in 16 months.

But the last laugh belonged to Issam Fares, who owns Miss Alleged. When two European horses dropped out of the $2-million Breeders’ Cup race, Miss Alleged drew in. She then overtook Itsallgreektome in the last 30 yards and won by a half-length.

Grouped with two other longshots in the betting, Miss Alleged paid $86.20 to win, becoming the first horse from the parimutuel field to win in the eight years of the Breeders’ Cup.

Now Miss Alleged will try to become one of those rare Breeders’ Cup winners who returns in the same year and wins another race. To join this small club, the 4-year-old filly will have to beat Itsallgreektome and Quest For Fame, the horses that finished immediately behind her in Kentucky, plus four others, in Sunday’s $500,000 Hollywood Turf Cup.

On Friday, Miss Alleged drew the outside post for the 1 1/2-mile race, which is the same distance as the Breeders’ Cup Turf. Itsallgreektome is on the inside, with Kent Desormeaux riding, and outside them come Lights Out, with William Mongil; Wide Colony, David Flores; Eternity Star, Corey Nakatani; Quest For Fame, Gary Stevens; Tidemark, Laffit Pincay, and Miss Alleged, with Chris McCarron aboard for the first time. Four of the starters will carry 126 pounds, with Miss Alleged running under 123 pounds and Eternity Star and Wide Colony carrying 122 apiece.

The chances for Breeders’ Cup winners to add to their laurels in the same year are limited, because most of the year’s major races have been run.

In 1984, however, Royal Heroine won the Breeders’ Cup Mile, and two weeks later, over the same Hollywood Park course, the Matriarch Stakes. In 1988, Great Communicator won the Breeders’ Cup Turf on Nov. 5 at Churchill Downs, then on Dec. 24 won the Hollywood Turf Cup. But he still lost the Eclipse Award for best male turf horse to Sunshine Forever, a horse Great Communicator had beaten in the Breeders’ Cup.

In fairness to Miss Alleged, her pre-Breeders’ Cup record requires significant footnotes. During the summer of 1990, racing in France, she won the first three starts of her career before running second at Longchamps despite suffering a chipped a bone in her left front ankle.

After surgery, Miss Alleged didn’t resume racing until May of this year. Trainer Pascal Bary immediately threw her into France’s best mixed competition, and although she was never good enough to beat males, she had five runner-up finishes, convincing Bary that she ought to try the Arc de Triomphe, the country’s showcase race. The filly’s sire, Alleged, had won the Arc twice, in 1976 and ’77.

Miss Alleged was 43-1 in the Arc, slightly longer than her Breeders’ Cup odds, but there was no storybook finish in Paris. In running 11th, she bled badly from the lungs. Bary and Fares brought her to Kentucky, where Lasix, a medication banned in Europe, is available for bleeders.

En route to Churchill Downs, Miss Alleged ran fifth in the Budweiser International at Laurel.

“That was the day we saw her coming back to her original form,” Fares said.

The International was only 1 1/4 miles.

“That’s a distance that’s too short for this filly,” Fares said.

At Churchill Downs, the tote board might have said firm, but jockeys riding in the grass races said that rain the day before the Breeders’ Cup had put some give in the track’s sandy turf course. That’s the kind of conditions Miss Alleged prefers, and Hollywood Park’s course might not be that much different Sunday.

She has a new jockey, McCarron having replaced Alain Lequeux, the French rider, and a new trainer, the filly having been sent to Charlie Whittingham at Hollywood Park a few weeks ago. Whittingham is in an unusual position: His Flawlessly--with McCarron--put in a bid for an Eclipse Award for best female on grass with her victory in the Matriarch two weeks ago, but Miss Alleged might become the favorite if she beats males again Sunday.

To do that, though, she must defeat Itsallgreektome, winner of the Turf Cup--and an Eclipse Award--a year ago, and Quest For Fame, the 1990 Epsom Derby winner who hasn’t won in six subsequent starts. Quest For Fame goes from trainer Roger Charlton to Bobby Frankel, who is also saddling Eternity Star, winner of the divided Hollywood Derby last month.

Horse Racing Notes

Henry Chavez was re-elected chairman of the California Horse Racing Board. Chavez, who has been chairman since Jan. 1, 1990, has been a board member since 1984. His current term will expire July 26. The board authorized UC Davis to negotiate a contract with Woody Asbury of the University of Florida to replace Rick Vulliet as equine medical director. The board’s budget for the director’s salary is $175,000. Leslie Liscom is leaving the board after serving since 1984.

Pat Valenzuela rode three winners . . . . Trainer John Sadler might scratch Valiant Pete from today’s Vernon O. Underwood Stakes while running Frost Free. . . . The only jockey to win the Hollywood Turf Cup more than once, Chris McCarron has finished first with Frankly Perfect, Alphabatim and John Henry. The race, first run in 1981, was split into divisions in 1982. . . . McCarron has sat out the last three days because of flu.

Marco Castaneda, injured in a spill Thursday at Bay Meadows, underwent ankle surgery and will be sidelined for four to six weeks. . . . The Hollywood Park stewards suspended apprentice jockey Felipe Martinez for five days, starting Sunday, after his mount, Caviar ‘N Dreams, was disqualified from third to fourth place for not maintaining a straight course in the stretch during Thursday’s ninth race.