HORSE RACING : From Preakness to Weakness: Leg Injury Retires Pine Bluff

The already-thin ranks of racing’s 3-year-old colt division lost one of the season’s most consistent performers Wednesday when it was announced that Pine Bluff has been retired because of a leg injury.

Pine Bluff, first in the Preakness Stakes and winner of the $1-million bonus for the best overall finishes in the Triple Crown races, tore a ligament in his left foreleg during a morning gallop at Belmont Park on June 22. After Pine Bluff’s condition was monitored for several days, veterinarians determined that he will not fully recover from the injury and will be unable to race competitively in major races.

John Ed Anthony, who bred and raced Pine Bluff, said that details about the colt’s career as a stallion would be announced.

First four times and second once in his five previous races, Pine Bluff finished fifth in the Kentucky Derby. Trainer Tom Bohannan and jockey Craig Perret were puzzled by Pine Bluff’s flat performance. In the Preakness two weeks later, ridden by Chris McCarron for the first time, the colt regained his form with a three-quarter-length victory over Alydeed. Pine Bluff had been sent off the favorite by the Pimlico fans despite his Derby disappointment.

In the Belmont Stakes last month, bettors got it right again, making A.P. Indy the even-money favorite as he won by three-quarters of a length over My Memoirs, with Pine Bluff, the second choice at 7-2, a neck farther back in third place. Only two horses--Pine Bluff and Casual Lies--had stayed eligible for the $1-million bonus by running in all three Triple Crown races.

A.P. Indy missed the Derby and the Preakness because of a crack in a hoof. Bohannan had been anticipating Pine Bluff getting a rematch with the Belmont winner later in the year.

“We got beat by a better horse on Belmont day, but I was not convinced that A.P. Indy would still be the better horse later,” Bohannan said Wednesday.

Pine Bluff, who also won the Arkansas Derby, finished with a record of six victories, one second and three thirds in 13 races and earnings of $2.2 million, including the $1-million bonus.

Pine Bluff was the probable favorite for the Travers Stakes at Saratoga on Aug. 22, but now the $1-million race will be missing all of the Triple Crown winners. Lil E. Tee, the Derby winner, is a bleeder and New York’s rules prohibit the medication he needs to be most effective. A.P. Indy is getting a rest while his hoof grows out, and he will embark on a fall campaign that should lead to the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Gulfstream Park on Oct. 31.

Meantime, the division suffers.

No new stars are expected to come out of Sunday’s Silver Screen Handicap at Hollywood Park, where Vying Victor will head a weak field.

New York’s prospective favorite for the Travers is Furiously, easy winner of three starts but untested in stakes company until he runs in the Dwyer at Belmont Park on Sunday. Bertrando, second to A.P. Indy in the Santa Anita Derby, might have been a factor with his speed in the Kentucky Derby, but he missed the Triple Crown because of flu and is likely to resume his career this summer at Del Mar.

Casual Lies is a Triple Crown survivor, but just barely--he ran a gritty fifth while tearing his hoof in the Belmont.

One of the best 3-year-olds still running is Alydeed, who after finishing second in the Preakness skipped the Belmont because of New York’s no-medication rule. Alydeed, a Canadian-bred, has been mopping up on second-rate horses at Woodbine and will be odds-on Sunday in the Queen’s Plate at the suburban Toronto track.

First Tight Spot was going to run in Saturday’s $200,000 American Handicap at Hollywood Park. Then there was the chance that he might run Friday night in the $55,000 Al Mamoon Handicap.

Now Tight Spot won’t be running at Hollywood Park at all, and the champion 1991 male turf horse’s next appearance will come at Del Mar, possibly in the Eddie Read Handicap on Aug. 16.

Tight Spot would have carried 129 pounds in the Al Mamoon and 126 in the American Handicap, and trainer Ron McAnally wasn’t thrilled with either weight assignment. In the American, which he won a year ago, Tight Spot would have been giving three pounds to Golden Pheasant, who came off a layoff to win the Inglewood Handicap at Hollywood on May 24.

Friday night’s 13-race Hollywood Park marathon, with the first post at 4 p.m., is headed by the $100,000 Sequoia Breeders’ Cup Handicap, with Heart of Joy carrying top weight of 123 pounds in an eight-horse field of turf sprinters. Heart of Joy’s winning streak ended when she was beaten by the German import, Martessa, at Hollywood on May 29. That race was a mile, and Friday Heart of Joy will be shortened to 5 1/2 furlongs.

Other stakes on the card are the $55,000 Al Mamoon Handicap at a mile on grass; the $55,000Tsunami Slew Handicap at 1 1/16 miles for 3-year-olds; and the $50,000 Bedside Promise Handicap at 5 1/2 furlongs. Sunny Blossom and Valiant Pete are two of the six horses entered for the Bedside Promise.

Trainer Roger Stein will try to win today’s feature and end Forty Niner Days’ 11-race losing streak. Stein has lost more than 100 pounds.

“Roger’s lost a jockey,” Chris McCarron said.

In two unusual rulings, the Hollywood Park stewards fined trainer Mike Goodin $1,000 and suspended Larry Schacht, a veterinarian assistant, for the rest of the season, which ends on July 27, for an incident following a victory by one of Goodin’s horses, Lady Kite, on June 11.

After the race, Goodin paid Schacht $40 for moving Lady Kite from the receiving barn to the holding barn for the post-race urine sample, which Schacht took.

“This was a gratuity, not a bribe,” steward Pete Pedersen said. “Unfortunately in some cases, gratuities are a way of life around the race track. The trainer paid for something that could have been done for his horse without him paying.”

Horse Racing Notes

Roger Stein saddled Knight Prospector, a filly with vision in only one eye, for a wire-to-wire victory Wednesday at Hollywood Park. . . . Golden Pheasant worked a half-mile in 49 seconds before the races. His future this fall is expected to include the Arlington Million, a race he won in 1990, and the Japan Cup, a race he won last year, followed by a stud career in Japan. . . . Trainer Wayne Lukas says there’s nothing physically wrong with Twilight Agenda. Last in Saturday’s Hollywood Gold Cup, the horse will skip the next two races in the American Championship Racing Series and aim for the $1-million Pacific Classic at Del Mar on Aug. 30. Best Pal beat Twilight Agenda by one length in the Classic last year. . . . Marquetry, second to Sultry Song in the Gold Cup, is expected to return to grass racing. He has been first or second seven times in 10 starts on that surface.