SANTA ANITA : Rain or Shine, Cool Gold Mood Will Get His Chance in San Luis Rey

The prices on the 9,083 yearlings sold at public auction in the United States during 1988 ranged from $3.5 million to $100. The average horse brought $31,250.

Cool Gold Mood was anything but average. He was one of 13 horses who sold for $100 in 1988, and actually he wasn’t sold at all. When Cool Gold Mood was led into the sales ring, no one at Keeneland bid for him. The agency that consigned the horse bought him back for $100.

Since then, Cool Gold Mood has been sold for $500, then $2,500 and an amount that’s probably in the $50,000 range, although his current trainer, Sandy Shulman, won’t say for sure. Shulman will saddle Cool Gold Mood Sunday for the 5-year-old’s most ambitious undertaking, the $300,000 San Luis Rey Stakes.

“Grass or dirt, rain or shine, he’ll run,” Shulman said. “He deserves the chance based on what he did last time.”

Shulman was referring to the $271,000 San Luis Obispo Handicap on Feb. 17, when Cool Gold Mood ran second, 1 3/4 lengths behind Quest For Fame. That race was at 1 1/2 miles on grass, the same conditions as those for Sunday’s stake, if rain doesn’t force Santa Anita to reschedule the San Luis Rey on the dirt.

Quest For Fame’s San Luis Obispo victory was his first in a stake since he won the Epsom Derby in England in June of 1990, and he has drawn the inside post Sunday, with Gary Stevens riding and the horse carrying 124 pounds, the same as the other five starters.

The rest of the field consists of Fanatic Boy, with jockey Eddie Delahoussaye; Cool Gold Mood, Kent Desormeaux; Seti I., Alex Solis; Fly Till Dawn, Laffit Pincay, and Provins, Chris McCarron. Miss Alleged, last year’s female turf champion, had been expected to run, but Charlie Whittingham said she missed some training time because of rain.

A victory by Cool Gold Mood on Sunday would also be the biggest thoroughbred success for Shulman, who left a photography business to take out his trainer’s license in 1981. Shulman, who has won between 40 and 50 races per year recently, has 28 horses in training, most of them running in the claiming ranks. Typical of the Shulman stock are the horses that gave him the early double on Thursday’s card.

One of those, Cheri Creame, is owned by Ron Charles of Glendale, who also races Cool Gold Mood. Charles bought Cool Gold Mood in a two-horse package last year from Jean-Laurent Andreani, whose Lonimar Stables was having financial difficulty.

“The other horse (Sing Sing Sky) won a couple of races for us,” Shulman said. “Cool Gold Mood was offered around to a number of people. He had some (physical) problems, but we bought him because we still thought he might turn out to be a fair grass runner.”

Under Shulman, Cool Gold Mood has earned about $180,000, running 10 times with three victories, three seconds and two thirds. Overall, he has won six of 28 races, with four seconds and 10 thirds, and has earned $281,250.

Cool Gold Mood, who won ungraded stakes on dirt last year at Fairplex Park and the Fresno County Fair, might become only the second stakes winner to be sired by Premier Ministre, who raced for the late Dolly Green and won four grass stakes in 1980 and ’81. The bottom half of Cool Gold Mood’s pedigree is more respectable, his dam, Princess Laika, being a daughter of Blushing Groom.

One of the reasons Cool Gold Mood was ignored as a yearling at Keeneland was an ugly scar that he had on a rear tendon. He apparently had been injured at the farm and the scar remained, even though it was claimed that there was nothing wrong with him at the time of the sale.

Shortly before Shulman bought him, Cool Gold Mood ran for a $70,000 claiming tag at Hollywood Park, finishing third on the grass. Asked why he didn’t claim him, Shulman said: “I didn’t think he was worth that much.”

Shulman ran Cool Gold Mood a couple of times in $62,500 claiming races, but since winning at that price on grass at Del Mar last summer, the horse has run in seven consecutive stakes.

“He tries hard every time he runs,” Shulman said.

Over objections by horsemen, the California Horse Racing Board approved Hollywood Park’s application for 13 Friday nights of racing.

By a 4-2 vote, the board approved the Friday nights with a 7 p.m. first post time. The board also approved a first post time of 1 p.m. at Hollywood on other racing days until July 1, when it will become 2 p.m. until the end of the meeting on July 29. The meeting will open on April 29.

The horsemen were uneasy with a limited schedule of Friday nights last year, and this season Hollywod plans to offer betting on quarter horses and harness horses from Los Alamitos and Sacramento in addition to the live thoroughbred cards on Friday nights.

“The only justification for Friday evenings was to increase our fan base to include new and younger fans,” said full-page advertisements that the horsemen ran in the Daily Racing Form this week. “For this purpose, we agreed to race at awkward hours and work days of inordinate length. We did not make these sacrifices to promote quarter horse and harness horse racing.”

Hollywood Park’s chairman, R.D. Hubbard, said the horsemen will gain about $1.3 million in purses this season as a result of the Friday night schedule.

Commissioners Henry Chavez, Bill Lansdale, Ralph Scurfield and Stefan Manolakas voted in favor of the Hollywood Park application, while Rosemary Ferraro and Don Valpredo were opposed.

“Now that we’ve approved this, I hope that the parties will get together and resolve their differences,” said Chavez, who is chairman of the racing board.

The horsemen indicated that they might boycott Hollywood Park’s entry box when the season opens.

Horse Racing Notes

The last time they met, Quest For Fame carried seven pounds more than Cool Gold Mood. . . . Fly Till Dawn comes into the San Luis Rey after a victory in the Arcadia Handicap. . . . Kent Desormeaux’s five-day suspension runs through Sunday, but he will be allowed to ride Cool Gold Mood because of California’s designated-race rule. . . . The last time Desormeaux had a suspension, he won the Santa Anita Handicap with Best Pal and the Santa Anita Oaks aboard Golden Treat because of the same rule.

Instead of running in today’s Miramontes Handicap, Dominion Gold ran Friday and won the feature, his first victory in eight American starts. . . . Only four horses--A.P. Indy, Bertrando, Hickman Creek and Fax News--might start in the Santa Anita Derby a week from today.

Andy Crevolin, who won the Santa Anita Derby and the Kentucky Derby with Determine in 1954, died Friday. Crevolin, who was 85, had bought Determine at Keeneland for $12,000, and when it was remarked how small the horse was, he said: “I must have been standing in a hole when I saw him.” The same day as Determine’s Kentucky Derby, Crevolin also won the Kyne Handicap with Imbros at Bay Meadows. Crevolin was unsuccessful in buying Decidedly, a son of Determine who won the Kentucky Derby in 1962.