QUARTER HORSE RACING / HOLLYWOOD PARK : The Race for World Champion Remains Far From the Finish

The competition for quarter horse world champion still is wide open, the 39-night Hollywood Park meeting that ended Sunday having done little to clarify the picture.

Various horses have topped the list of contenders, including the 2-year-old filly Deceptively, the 3-year-old filly Corona Chick and the 4-year-old gelding Refrigerator. Refrigerator, who won two major stakes at Los Alamitos last summer, lost for the first time this year, finishing second to Shawnes Diamond in the $50,000 Go Man Go Handicap at Hollywood Park.

Refrigerator will not start again until the Champion of Champions at Los Alamitos on Dec. 19, a race whose winner has become world champion after 13 of its 20 runnings.

Shawnes Diamond is one on a list of horses with outside chances for the world championship. The 4-year-old gelding finished behind Refrigerator twice at Los Alamitos, but in winning the Go Man Go Handicap--his second stakes victory of the Hollywood Park meeting--he set a track record, running 400 yards in 19.54 seconds.

Shawnes Diamond, owned by Bud, Nancy and David Rasner, will make his next start in the Champion of Champions trials at Los Alamitos on Dec. 4. Four of the 10 spots for the Champion of Champions are awarded to winners of major stakes through the year, the remaining six spots being determined by the trials. Refrigerator, Ed Grimley, Femmes Frolic and Bills Ryon have earned spots in the final.

Refrigerator was racing for the first time since winning the Los Alamitos Championship in late July. He was scratched from the Breeders’ Championship Classic in early October after flipping in the starting gate.

Shawnes Diamond, who has raced in California all year, would need convincing victories in both the trials and final to be considered for world champion by the 64 members of the American Quarter Horse Assn. racing committee, which determines year-end champions. The last three Champion of Champions winners--Special Leader, Dash For Speed and See Me Do It--became world champions.

“(Shawnes Diamond) is pretty good right now,” said winning jockey John Creager. “(Trainer Barry Woodhouse) has spread his races through the year. I think they’re setting this horse up well for the Champion of Champions.”

Shawnes Diamond’s track record didn’t last 24 hours. On Sunday, Rare Form won the $81,600 California Derby, running 400 yards in 19.35 seconds for his third consecutive victory in California.

The 3-year-old colt also will be pointed for the Champion of Champions trials and is a leading contender, along with Breeders’ Championship Classic winner Bills Ryon, for the 3-year-old of the year title.

Rare Form, a winner in 15 of his 20 starts, has won eight of nine this year, his only bad finish a ninth in the Remington Park Championship in July. His victory in the California Derby marked a remarkable month for trainer Bob Gilbert, who also won the Breeders’ Sophomore Classic with Rare Form and the Anne Burnett Invitational with Junos Request.

Both horses are ridden by Steve Treasure, who was sidelined in early October because of a wrist injury, but hurried his recovery to ride them.

“I asked the doctor, ‘How soon can you have me back?’ And he said, ‘Two to three weeks.’ It was exactly two weeks when I rode in the California Derby trials (Oct. 15),” Treasure said.

“They’ll both run in the (Champion of Champions) trials, and we’ll see what happens from there. (Rare Form) sure looks like something. We’ll see at the end of the year.”

Despite a mutuel handle that fell short of expectations, quarter horse officials intend to return to Hollywood Park next year, but only if harness racing finds a backer for its Los Alamitos meetings.

If there is no leaseholder, then quarter horse racing would be based at Los Alamitos year-round. Paul Reddam of Newport Beach heads a group considering the Los Alamitos lease.

The average mutuel handle for the 39-night meeting was $788,571, which was slightly higher than the 1987 Hollywood Park meeting’s, the last time quarter horses raced at Hollywood. The average handle for the spring-summer meeting at Los Alamitos was $996,482.

The Hollywood Park handle, though, was higher than the 1991 Bay Meadows quarter horse meeting’s, $611,442, which served as a second site for quarter horse racing last year.

“We were pleased with the experience (at Hollywood Park),” said Edward Allred, the president and chief executive officer of the Horsemen’s Quarter Horse Racing Assn., which leased Hollywood Park for the quarter horse meeting. “We were disappointed with the on-track handle, which has been lower than what were accustomed to at Los Alamitos. We projected $900,000, and we’ll do $100,000 less. It’s a tough time of year to run.”

Allred said that even though the attendance and handle were less than hoped, the long-term effects of exposing Hollywood Park fans to quarter horse racing could be earned with simulcasts from Los Alamitos at other times of the year.

The meeting also marked the emergence of Arabians in Southern California. The richest race of the meeting, the $170,700 Drinkers of the Wind Futurity, was for 3-year-old Arabians. Arabians ran as many as three or four races per night.

Quarter Horse Notes

Four Forty Blast won the $116,000 California Futurity on Sunday for owners James Streelman and Denny Boer, who make up the Dutch Masters III Syndicate. They are also part owners of Thirty Slews, who on Saturday will race in the $1-million Breeders’ Cup Sprint for thoroughbreds at Gulfstream Park in Florida.