HOLLYWOOD PARK : Paseana Wins Vanity Handicap, Extends Stake Streak to Seven

During a six-race, eight-month winning streak that carried Paseana into Sunday’s $300,000 Vanity Handicap at Hollywood Park, the 5-year-old mare had never allowed an opponent to get closer than 2 1/4 lengths of her at the wire.

Paseana’s five rivals were forced to keep their distance again Sunday, and although the Vanity proved to be her shortest winning margin--two lengths--the Argentine-bred never left any doubt through Hollywood’s 991-foot stretch. Winning her seventh in a row, Paseana carried 127 pounds and was bet down to 1-5 odds, both impressive numbers for the Vanity, which was first run in 1940.

Gamely, a champion handicap distaffer in 1968, carried 131 pounds while winning the Vanity that year and still holds the stake record for winning weight, but on Sunday Paseana tied Gamely’s low win payoff for the race by returning $2.60 for $2. Of the $166,817 bet in the win pool, $101,498 was on Paseana, and the track had to pay $9,274.35 to guarantee the $2.10 show payoff when a minus pool on that bet developed.

Fowda, second behind Paseana and 1 1/4 lengths better than Re Toss, the third-place finisher, ran a determined race, carrying 118 pounds and getting nine pounds from Paseana. Pat Valenzuela kept Fowda on the lead until the far turn.

With a half-mile to go, Paseana and Chris McCarron had crept up, from a length back to within a neck of the lead. With three-eighths of a mile left, Paseana stuck her head in front. McCarron hit her several times left-handed through the stretch as they pulled away to victory.

Only three Vanity winners--Gamely, Silver Spoon with 130 pounds in 1960 and Cascapedia at 129 in 1977--have carried more weight than Paseana and won the stake.

Paseana became a millionaire with the victory, earning $165,000 for her owners, Sidney and Jenny Craig. They bought her through the legwork of trainer Ron McAnally for $320,000 in April of 1991.

Paseana had won four of eight races then, and now her record is 12 victories, one second and one third in 16 starts.

Her time Sunday for 1 1/8 miles was 1:48, which was 1 4/5 seconds slower than the stake record set by Princess Rooney in 1984.

McCarron had an unusual week. From Monday through Friday, he was in a downtown Los Angeles court room, offering testimony in a case in which he and another jockey, Laffit Pincay, claim that their longtime business managers mismanaged investment funds.

Returning to action Saturday, McCarron won four races, including the Hollywood Park stake, and he added two more victories Sunday.

“I might have been able to work in some riding (around going to court),” McCarron said. “But I wouldn’t have had my mind on my business, and it wouldn’t have been fair to the trainers and the fans.”

McAnally has won the Vanity three out of the last four years, scoring with Brought To Mind last year and Bayakoa in 1989. Gorgeous broke up the trainer’s string with a victory in 1990, the year McAnally chose not to run Bayakoa because of a 128-pound weight assignment.

Bayakoa was also discovered by McAnally and his lookouts in the Argentine, and although she won Eclipse Awards in 1989 and 1990, Paseana could be even better.

Asked what it’s like to ride Paseana, McCarron said: “It’s hard to put into words. It’s a great feeling. She always breaks well for you, she gets into the race right away. She’s got great speed. She gallops along until you step on the pedal a little bit more, and her response is there all the time.”

Bayakoa couldn’t beat males in the United States. Paseana, a horse-of-the-year contender, may get her chance in the $1-million Pacific Classic at Del Mar on Aug. 30. For a change, she would get a break in the weights. The Classic is run under weight-for-age conditions, which means that 3-year-olds carry 116 pounds and older males 124. Paseana would have to carry only 119, however, because of a five-pound sex allowance.

“The time is right,” McAnally said Sunday. “The weight conditions would be in our favor. The only thing we don’t know is who the competition will be. Right now, she has as good a chance as the boys have.”

The Craigs run a national string of weight-control centers. “It’ll be great for the company that they’re taking weight off her,” Jenny Craig said.

Horse Racing Notes

Dropped by his mount at the start of Saturday’s second race, Chris McCarron returned to win four in a row, including a ride on Forest Glow in the Hollywood Park Budweiser Breeders’ Cup Stakes. Then McCarron made it five in a row Sunday when he won the fifth race with Extra Footage, his first mount on the card. McCarron’s streak ended in the next race, when he finished fourth aboard Admiral Caro.

McCarron is the last jockey to win 100 races in a season, taking the title with exactly 100 in 1984, but Kent Desormeaux appears certain to reach triple figures at this meet, which will end a week from today. Desormeaux had his 97th winner in the third race, then added No. 98 in the $55,000 Lakeside Handicap, the race before the Vanity, and No. 99 in the last race on the card. Desormeaux won the Lakeside with a late-running ride aboard River Rhythm. Claret, the even-money favorite, battled Marchito for the lead early and resisted a challenge from Double Found through the stretch, but River Rhythm passed them all a couple of jumps from the wire for a 7-1 upset for trainer Walter Greenman. The French-raced River Rhythm was making only his second American start, after running eighth in the Rolling Green Handicap at Golden Gate Fields on May 23.

Steff Graf, who was 30-1 on the morning line, was scratched from the Vanity about two hours before post time. . . . The only horse to beat Paseana since she left South America was another Argentine-bred, Lady Charlton, in the Manta Handicap at Santa Anita in October. . . . The last four stakes of the Hollywood Park season are the Swaps and the Bel-Air Handicap on Saturday, the Sunset Handicap on Sunday and the Hollywood Juvenile a week from today. . . . Del Mar’s 43-day season will begin a week from Wednesday.