Hess’ Goal: More of the Same : Trainer: After winning 31 races at Hollywood Park--22 with riding champion Desormeaux as his jockey--he will seek a second consecutive Del Mar title beginning today.

A few days ago, Bob Hess Jr. sat at a desk in his barn office here, making plans for the 43-day Del Mar season that opens today.

Hess’ phone rang. It was Gene Short, the agent for jockey Kent Desormeaux, calling from Hollywood Park. There are two horsemen whom the 27-year-old Hess talks to virtually every day--Short, whose client has ridden more winners for Hess than anyone in the past year, and Bob Hess Sr., the trainer’s father, who has occasionally finished high in the Bay Meadows and Golden Gate Fields trainer standings on the Northern California circuit.

Short had called as the season was winding down at Hollywood Park, where Hess was involved in a battle with Bill Spawr and Ron McAnally for the training title.

“Get your jock on the ball, and we’ll win it,” Hess said to Short.

Short said something, and then Hess said: “Nah, Spawr’s the guy to beat. Mac’s tough, but Spawr is the guy we have to beat.”

Hess was right about Spawr, and perhaps his pep talk to Short helped. With Desormeaux riding, Hess won the fourth-to-last race of the Hollywood meeting, thereby edging Spawr, 31-30. Desormeaux won 22 of those races for Hess. The last time any trainers did more winning than Hess and Spawr during the track’s spring-summer meeting was when Gary Jones and the late Laz Barrera were co-champions with 34 winners apiece in 1980.

Hess won his first training title, last summer at Del Mar, by a more comfortable margin. Winning with about one-third of his starters, Hess had 18 victories, finishing three ahead of McAnally.

That result was especially pleasing to Hess because Del Mar is his “hometown” track. He was born in Chula Vista, and during the summers, while studying for an economics degree at Stanford, Hess would come here with three or four of his father’s horses. Shortly after graduation, he saddled his first winner, Parlapiano, at Del Mar. That was five years ago Friday, in a race for $10,000 claimers.

“This is my favorite meet anywhere, because of my memories of those summers,” Hess said. “I remember sharing some barn space with Loren Rettele then.”

Parlapiano’s victory might have been exhilarating for Hess, but it was also the beginning of a humbling experience, one his college background might have prepared him for, having to do with supply and demand.

“After that first win,” Hess said, “I went four months with no wins. Two days before Christmas (at Hollywood Park), I finally got my second winner. Then the day after Christmas, I won the first race of the new season at Santa Anita. I was the leading trainer there for about a half-hour.”

Recently, Hess learned another training fact of life, having a potentially good horse taken from him by its owners and sent to another trainer. In this case, the horse was J.F. Williams, a 3-year-old colt undefeated in three starts before being moved to the barn of McAnally, who also picked up two other horses Hess was training.

There were backstretch reports that Hess was reluctant to ship J.F. Williams to Monmouth Park to run in this Sunday’s Haskell Handicap. “I can’t say that,” Hess said. “The horse had been sick, that was the only thing. It’s the owners’ prerogative to do what they did, and I’ve got no sour grapes about it. J.F. Williams could be the best 3-year-old in the country by the time the year’s over.”

Hess has lost horses another way, via the claiming box. Most of his stock runs in claiming races, and nine horses belonged to other trainers by the time the 1991 Del Mar meeting had ended.

“I never worry when that happens,” Hess said. “As long as I have quality clients, I’m happy. I’m not necessarily talking about people with deep pockets, but owners that I can communicate with and work with. I like doing what I’m doing, following in my dad’s footsteps, because I love animals and I love the business and the people involved in it.”

One of his best claims, for $40,000, is Slerp, a grandson of Seattle Slew who has earned about $150,000 in six races since Hess bought him out of a race at Santa Anita last January. Slerp won two minor stakes in California last spring before finishing fourth in the Riva Ridge Stakes at Belmont Park on June 6.

“He tore up his foot in that race,” Hess said. “But we’ve got him ready to go again. He’ll run in the Crosby next.”

The $100,000 Bing Crosby Handicap, at six furlongs, will be run Sunday.

Horse Racing Notes

Today’s opening stake, the Oceanside on the grass for 3-year-olds, has been split into divisions for the fourth consecutive year and the ninth time in 12 years. . . . Leonard Lavin, who won a division of the Oceanside with Repriced last year, has a strong contender, Major Impact, in today’s first half. With two victories, Major Impact has not been worse than third in six starts this year and has a first and a second in his only grass races. . . . Major Impact is a son of Roberto, an Epsom Derby winner, and in the second part of the Oceanside, Phone Roberto, a grandson of the English champion, will step into stakes company as he makes his first start on grass.

Californian Corey Black, who has been riding in Europe this year, will be aboard River Majesty, a French-raced colt making his American debut, in the second division of the Oceanside. . . . Kent Desormeaux, runaway riding champion at Hollywood Park with 107 victories, had 51 winners here last season, finishing two behind Pat Valenzuela in the standings.

Post time is 2 p.m. daily for the Wednesday-through-Monday schedule, which continues through Sept. 16. . . . Early-bird betting at the track is open from 7 to 10 a.m.. . . . Del Mar’s off-track satellite network has grown from 14 to 18 locations. . . . Last year, when Del Mar led the country with a daily average handle of $7.8 million, 61% of the total was bet off-track.