HOLLYWOOD PARK : Matriarch Might Prove the Key

Shortly after 3:30 this afternoon, either Kostroma, Flawlessly or Super Staff will have wrapped up the Eclipse Award by winning the $400,000 Matriarch at Hollywood Park.

Or one of the six other fillies and mares will score an upset in the Grade I and really scramble the Eclipse picture for the nation’s best female turf performer.

Flawlessly, the defending champion and unbeaten in three starts on the Hollywood Park turf, is the 8-5 morning line favorite for the 1 1/8-mile Matriarch. The 4-year-old Affirmed filly will try to end a two-race losing streak against Super Staff, who is the 7-2 third choice.

Kostroma, who skipped the Yellow Ribbon Stakes earlier this month because of a lung infection, is the 9-5 second choice and has trained exceptionally well for Gary Jones. She will be trying to end a three-race losing streak against Flawlessly, having been beaten in the last year’s Matriarch and in this year’s Beverly Hills Handicap and Ramona Handicap.

Lady Shirl appears capable of an upset. A 5-year-old That’s A Nice mare, she has won 12 of 18 turf starts and earned nearly $767,000 on the surface for trainer Noel Hickey.

Second in the Bayakoa Handicap at Gulfstream Park the day before the Breeders’ Cup, Lady Shirl worked three furlongs in 34 2/5 over the Hollywood Park turf on Friday and will be ridden by Laffit Pincay.

“She bruised her feet and was off for a little while in the summer,” Hickey said. “We knew she was a little short in her last race.”

The other entrants are Sporades, who has won three of six in France; Campagnarde, who hasn’t won since the 1991 Ramona Handicap; Re Toss; Hydro Calido, who has three victories in eight French races, and Lite Light, whose last victory came in the 1991 Coaching Club American Oaks and who will be trying turf for the first time.

Bobby Frankel’s powerful stable has gotten even stronger since the Breeders’ Cup.

The trainer has added 15 horses during the last month and one of the new arrivals, Creaking Board, won the $250,000 Miesque Stakes on Saturday.

Returned to the turf after finishing sixth in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies, the English-bred daughter of Night Shift accelerated rapidly when a hole developed and went on to beat 14-1 shot Ask Anita by a little more than two lengths in 1:35 3/5 for the mile.

Ridden by Kent Desormeaux, Creaking Board has two victories and three seconds in six turf starts. Before Saturday, all of those races had come in France for her Italian owner, Antonio Balzarini.

Frankel has never met Balzarini, whose family races under the name of the AJB-PC Stable, Ltd., but, the way Creaking Board performed, he might get more horses from AJB-PC, which also owns Carroll House, the 1989 Arc de Triomphe winner.

“An agent approached me a few months ago saying (Balzarini) wanted to send me this filly,” Frankel said. “He’s a big owner in Europe. They have a lot of horses over there.

“The thing is to keep (Creaking Board) sound for next year, because I think she could be a really serious filly. She had really impressed me in the morning. She did what she acted like she could do.”

Ask Anita, who had a length lead a furlong from the finish in her first start on turf, beat Zoonaqua, the 5-2 second choice, by three-quarters of a length.

Making his first start since Aug. 15 in Ireland, Earl Of Barking rallied for a 1 1/4-length victory over Devil’s Rock in the $250,000 Hoist The Flag Stakes Saturday.

Never worse than third in five starts in his native land, the 2-year-old Common Grounds colt won for the third time Saturday after training well for Richard Cross at Santa Anita.

“I worked him the other day and he really impressed me,” jockey Alex Solis said of the winner, who paid $13.60.

“When we got into the stretch (Saturday), I got him in the clear. It took me a while to get him to change leads. Once he changed leads, whoosh. He just accelerated.”

Trying to give Frankel a sweep of the day’s 2-year-old stakes, Devil’s Rock had to settle for second, a nose in front of 2-1 favorite Corby. Lord Of The Bay, who had won two consecutive stakes in the East, faded to sixth as the 5-2 second choice.

Two races after the Matriarch today, Roman Envoy will try to extend his winning streak to six when he takes on seven rivals in the $250,000 Citation Handicap at 1 1/8 miles on turf.

A 4-year-old Roman Diplomat gelding, Roman Envoy has gone wire-to-wire at four tracks during his streak. He won twice at Saratoga, then once each at the Meadowlands, Belmont and Gulfstream Park. Craig Perret will be in to ride the 9-5 favorite for trainer Jimmy Picou and owners Fred and Wanda Hooper. The winner in seven of 12 grass starts, Roman Envoy has never won at longer than 1 1/16 miles.

Steinbeck, Stark South, Blaze O’Brien, Trishyde, Leger Cat, Bistro Garden and Luthier Enchanteur round out the field.

Horse Racing Notes

Star Of The Crop, the second-longest shot in the five-horse field at 6-1, equaled the track record for six furlongs when he won the $56,200 Bedside Promise Handicap in 1:08 Saturday. The 3-year-old Relaunch colt, who is trained by Willard Proctor and was ridden by Gary Stevens, equaled the record set by Sam Who on May 20, 1989.

All the Matriarch starters will carry 123 pounds except the 3-year-olds Hydro Calido and Sporades, who will carry 120. . . . Best Pal had his second work since returning to trainer Gary Jones’ barn. He went three furlongs in 37 4/5 and might return in the seven-furlong San Carlos Handicap on Jan. 9. . . . There is a Pick Six carry-over for today of $105,871.63.