HOLLYWOOD PARK : McCarron Takes the Initiative, Sends Flawlessly Out to Victory

The day before Sunday’s Beverly Hills Handicap at Hollywood Park, Judy McCarron, the jockey’s wife, was looking at the Daily Racing Form and discussing the $319,000 race with her husband.

“Who’s going to the front?” she asked.

“I might be,” Chris McCarron said.

As the five fillies and mares loaded into the gate for the 1 1/8-mile turf race, McCarron had the feeling that his mount, Flawlessly, might start second behind Alcando, who led the stake wire to wire last year.

“But when Alcando got left, I said to myself, ‘I’m going now,’ ” McCarron said.

The first part of the race was a stroll, with slow fractions of 24 2/5, 49 and 1:12. What remained was a long, hard stretch drive that ended with Kostroma, the 3-5 favorite, unable to overtake Flawlessly, who was a head better at the wire. Flawlessly paid $5.80 to win, was timed in 1:47 and earned $184,000 for his breeders and owners, Louis and Patrice Wolfson. The Wolfsons raced Flawlessly’s sire, Affirmed, who in 1978 became the last horse to win the Triple Crown.

Trainer Charlie Whittingham, who had saddled only three winners through the first 43 days of the Hollywood season, took his time getting Flawlessly ready for her return from an injury suffered late last year. The Beverly Hills was the 4-year-old filly’s first start in almost seven months, since she won the Matriarch in Inglewood on Dec. 1.

Whittingham, 79, has done this before, winning a major race with a horse who has trained up to it after a layoff. Greinton did so, winning the Santa Anita Handicap in 1986.

“Some horses can do this and some can’t,” Whittingham said. “This filly can, because she’s willing to train. She’s gotten big and strong. She was kind of a light filly, but now she’s filled in, gaining about 100 pounds.”

Before the Wolfsons sent Flawlessly to Whittingham early last year, she had won three of eight starts in New York. In California, she is six for seven, the only loss coming when Kostroma beat her by two lengths in the Yellow Ribbon at Santa Anita in November. Kostroma, who carried 124 pounds Sunday to Flawlessly’s 122, has lost only twice in her last seven starts, the other loss coming when she ran sixth in Flawlessly’s Matriarch.

“Flawlessly was a bleeder in New York,” Whittingham said, “and that’s the reason she came out here. You can’t use medication there, and she’s been running on Lasix here.”

Jockey Kent Desormeaux is leading the Hollywood meeting in victories and ranks second nationally in purses--about $200,000 behind McCarron--but Kostroma finished off a frustrating weekend for him. On Saturday, in the $1-million Hollywood Gold Cup, Desormeaux finished third with favored Another Review.

Kostroma has chronic sore hoofs, and Desormeaux believes the hardness of Hollywood Park’s grass course was a factor in Sunday’s stretch run.

“That track’s like a paved road, and it stings her feet,” Desormeaux said. “She shortens up her stride, and you know it’s hurting her. The track’s a paved road and you’re running in a short field with no pace. Maybe the fans like a five-horse race, but it doesn’t work in my favor.”

Kostroma raced in second place all the way, and with a quarter of a mile to go, she was about two lengths back. Still, McCarron wasn’t optimistic.

“I thought we were running for second,” the jockey said. “I thought Kostroma would outrun us. But she wasn’t able to, much to my delight. I still had a lot of horse left.”

Kostroma finished 1 3/4 lengths ahead of Alcando, with Indian Chris fourth and Lady Blessington last in the field that lost Martessa, the German filly who was second to Kostroma on the morning line. Martessa, who ran a 1:33 grass mile on May 29 in her first American start, was scratched because of an infected ankle.

Horse Racing Notes

Sunday’s crowd of 11,727 was affected by the aftershock alert that followed Sunday’s earthquakes. The earthquakes caused water to overflow from the equine swimming pool on the Hollywood Park backstretch. The water flowed across the track, to the inside rail near the five-eighths pole, with some horses jumping the puddle during workouts. Some trainers called off their workouts. The track was dry by the time the races started. Two off-track betting sites, the National Orange Show in San Bernardino and the San Bernardino County Fair in Victorville, canceled betting from Hollywood Park because of the earthquakes. The Orange Show sustained structural damage and the Country Fair was without power at mid-day. Sunday’s earthquakes came a year to the day after another earthquake caused hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage to Santa Anita, killing Julie Nickoley and seriously injuring her boyfriend, trainer Art Lerille.

Sultry Song, winner of the Hollywood Gold Cup, and Strike The Gold, the 1991 Kentucky Derby winner, might have My Memoirs to beat in the next stop on the American Championship Racing Series tour, the Suburban Handicap at Belmont Park on July 18. The English-raced My Memoirs, making his first American start, ran a strong second to A.P. Indy in the Belmont Stakes and as a 3-year-old facing older horses would be favorably weighted for the Suburban. . . . Sultry Song’s groom, Norman Caraman, said that the colt hardly noticed the earthquake. “He was sleeping and he got right up,” Caraman said. “He’s shipped all over the country and nothing bothers him. He’s a hard horse to rattle.” Caraman received a pickup truck, a prize that was offered to the winning groom in the Gold Cup.