THOROUGHBRED RACING : Delahoussaye Sticks With Drysdale

When the Neil Drysdale-trained Damewood won a $38,000 allowance race Friday at Santa Anita, it wasn’t surprising that the jockey was Eddie Delahoussaye.

Drysdale and Delahoussaye have accounted for many victories far more important than Damewood’s, and their lengthy relationship is the main reason Delahoussaye chose A.P. Indy to ride instead of Pleasant Tap in today’s $850,000 Jockey Club Gold Cup at Belmont Park.

Two of Drysdale’s three Breeders’ Cup winners--Princess Rooney in 1984 and Prized in 1989--were ridden by Delahoussaye, who has also been the only jockey A.P. Indy has known during his nine-race career.

A.P. Indy’s seven-race winning streak ended when he finished fifth in the Molson Export Million at Woodbine on Sept. 13. This will be the first test for Drysdale’s 3-year-old against older horses.

Pleasant Tap, whom Delahoussaye has ridden for his last eight races, including three stakes victories and four second-place finishes, is the 5-2 favorite at Belmont. A.P. Indy is 4-1, the fourth choice in a seven-horse field.

“Neil and I go back a long ways, which had a lot to do with who I rode,” Delahoussaye said. “Also, A.P. Indy won the Belmont Stakes over that track, and I think he’ll do a whole lot better than he did in Canada, when he didn’t give me anything. Neil thinks it might have been the track, and it might have also been the layoff. He hadn’t run since the Belmont (on June 6). We’ll know after Saturday whether I made a mistake.”

The mount on Pleasant Tap has gone to Gary Stevens, who won three races Friday at Santa Anita. Pleasant Tap has run his last four races at Belmont, finishing second to Dixie Brass in the Metropolitan Handicap and to Strike The Gold in the Nassau County Handicap; winning the Suburban Handicap, and running second, 1 3/4 lengths behind Sultry Song, in the Woodward.

Sultry Song, a late entry in the horse-of-the-year sweepstakes with three victories in California and New York, is entered in the Gold Cup, as is Strike The Gold. Pleasant Tap and Strike The Gold come from off of the pace and need fast fractions by the front-runners in order to launch effective stretch runs. There were no such fractions in the Woodward, enabling Sultry Song to hold off a late rush by Pleasant Tap.

Because of Missionary Ridge, today’s race sets up differently. Winless since April, Missionary Ridge was 24-1 when he scored a front-running victory in the $1-million Pacific Classic at Del Mar in August, and jockey Kent Desormeaux will be trying to use the same tactics at Belmont.

Horse Racing Notes

The track was sloppy for the races Friday at Belmont. More rain might work to A.P. Indy’s advantage. . . . Paseana, a leading horse-of-the-year candidate when she ran fifth against males in the Pacific Classic, will return to her division Sunday in the $300,000 Spinster, a 1 1/8-mile race at Keeneland. Among her nine opponents are Lite Light and Meadow Star, who have been unable to regain their top form of 1991, and Fowda. . . . Among the seven stakes on today’s card at Belmont is the $250,000 Breeders’ Cup Steeplechase. Entrants include Mistico, who is owned by R.D. Hubbard of Hollywood Park.