Few Positives for Gold Cup : Horse racing: All 10 horses appear to have negative qualities. And favorites are faring poorly in the ACRS.

Handicappers of today’s $750,000 Hollywood Gold Cup might start by throwing out these horses:

--Lottery Winner. Besides never having won a graded stake, the 4-year-old gelding will be ridden by Chris McCarron. He has won 176 stakes at Hollywood Park, more than anyone except Bill Shoemaker and Laffit Pincay, but McCarron has been blanked on 12 Gold Cup mounts, finishing second nine times.

--Bertrando. In 11 starts, the speedy colt has never won at 1 1/4 miles, the Gold Cup distance.

--Campo Marzio. He’s out of place in a stakes race, having come from the $80,000 claiming ranks at Santa Anita.

--Rough Habit. A victory by the Australian champion would make the best story, but all of the 7-year-old gelding’s 56 starts and 24 victories have been on grass.

--Best Pal. Winless for more than 14 months, the 9-5 favorite is the high weight at a modest 121 pounds, and high weights haven’t been winning the Gold Cup lately. Ferdinand, who carried 124 pounds in 1987, is the only high-weight winner in the last 10 runnings.

--Marquetry. The 6-year-old won the Gold Cup in 1991, setting a record with his $56.80 payoff, but except for Native Diver, who won the race three consecutive times in 1965-67, no horse has won the stake twice. Such standouts as Ferdinand, Ancient Title, Quack and Kayak II have failed to repeat.

--Missionary Ridge. English-breds have won the Gold Cup--Gallant Man, Perrault and Greinton--but this 6-year-old is one for nine on dirt, the only victory an apparent aberration, at 24-1 in the Pacific Classic at Del Mar 10 months ago.

--Major Impact. This is another horse whose best races have been on grass, as they should be with his Roberto breeding. Marquetry beat him by 10 lengths while winning the Mervyn LeRoy Handicap a month ago.

--Potrillon. The 5-year-old Argentine-bred is winless in three starts in the United States, two of them races won by Marquetry and Lottery Winner.

--Latin American. Other than Marquetry and Campo Marzio, he is the only Gold Cup starter who comes into the race off a winning effort. But is it a tipoff that Gary Stevens, who won the Californian with Latin American on April 24, is now riding Major Impact?

Theoretically, this eliminates all 10 starters. Today’s field is typical of what handicappers have faced all season in the older-male dirt division: No standout among a collection of horses who have taken turns beating one another. The most consistent horse, Jovial, is being rested for the long haul, which ends with the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Santa Anita on Nov. 6, and he hasn’t run since winning the Oaklawn Handicap in Arkansas on April 10.

The 54th Gold Cup is the sixth race in the nine-race American Championship Racing Series. In the last 11 races in the series, only one has been won by a favorite.

Historical negatives aside, trainer Gary Jones and jockey Corey Black go into the race with more confidence than they had before Best Pal’s second-place finish on grass behind Bien Bien in the Hollywood Turf Handicap on May 31.

Five weeks earlier, Best Pal was held out of the Californian because of a bruised right hoof and an abscess.

“He wasn’t 100% fit for the grass race,” Black said. “But that seven eighths-mile work (in 1:23 3/5 on June 24) showed me that he’s a completely different horse than he was before the Turf Handicap. I’m confident. He’s coming into the race real well.”

Best Pal had another solid workout on Tuesday, five furlongs in 59 2/5. The 5-year-old gelding’s second-place finish in the Turf Handicap put his earnings over the $4-million mark.

“I knew he’d be a short horse for that last race,” said Jones, who is starting his first horse in the Gold Cup. “When Bien Bien went by him (on the far turn), I thought he’d finish last. Then he finished second on class alone.”

It seemed like a strange spot for Best Pal’s return from the injury, since he had run only once before on grass.

“That didn’t bother me,” Jones said. “The main thing was to get a mile and a quarter into him to get him ready for this race.”

Horse Racing Notes

As a result of overpayments of more than $70,000 to bettors after a race at Hollywood Park last Sunday, Amtote has made adjustments in its equipment that reduces the likelihood of the same mistake. “There was a pilot (human) error, but we’ve made changes in the software,” said Brooks Pierce, a marketing executive with the tote company. “Theoretically, what happened in that race shouldn’t happen again. I’m reluctant to use the word never because of the experience we’ve already had this year in California.”

The problem at Hollywood Park followed a rocky start for Autotote last winter at Santa Anita, where breakdowns in the system plagued patrons. According to Hollywood Park officials, Autotote is responsible for the overpayments, which occurred when the correct numbers of the first two horses were posted, but with mutuel payoffs that were reversed. At Ruidoso Downs in New Mexico, where there was betting on the race, the numbers of on the first two horses were reversed for a few minutes before a correction was made.

“I am not aware of wrong numbers being hung up at any of the betting sites in California,” Pierce said. “But there could have been some problems with the numbers out of state.”

Post time for the first race at Hollywood Park today is 12:30 p.m., with the Hollywood Gold Cup, the third live race on the card, scheduled for 2:18 p.m. Besides three stakes at Hollywood, there will also be betting on telecasts of two other races, the Dwyer for 3-year-olds at Belmont Park and the Molly Pitcher Handicap for fillies and mares at Monmouth Park in New Jersey. Miner’s Mark, who skipped the Triple Crown races, is the 8-5 favorite in the Dwyer, which also includes Cherokee Run, who ran second in the Preakness and sixth in the Belmont Stakes.

Devil His Due, the point leader in the American Championship Racing Series, and West By West, undefeated at Belmont, head the seven-horse field for the Suburban Handicap on Sunday at the New York track. The Suburban is not a championship series race. Devil His Due, who finished fourth as West By West won a series race, the Nassau County Handicap, at Belmont on June 5, has been assigned 121 pounds Sunday, five more than West By West.

In the series, Devil His Due has 24 points, followed by Pistols and Roses with 20, Missionary Ridge with 16, Valley Crossing with 14 and West By West and Latin American at 10 apiece. The remaining races after the Gold Cup are the Iselin Handicap at Monmouth on July 24, the Pacific Classic at Del Mar on Aug. 21 and the Woodward at Belmont on Sept. 18. The point leader at the end earns a bonus of $550,000, with $225,000 for second place and $125,000 for third. . . . Arinthod, whose dirt debut didn’t work out in the Belmont Stakes, will return to grass Sunday in the Lexington Stakes for 3-year-olds at Belmont.

In support of the “Jockeys Across America” program for the Don MacBeth Memorial Jockey Fund, many of the Hollywood Park riders will have a foot race, going an eighth of a mile on the grass course today at 11:40 a.m. The fund raises money for disabled jockeys. . . . In Sunday’s $200,000 American Handicap, Toussaud, a two-time stakes winner within her division this season, will try to beat seven males, including Man From Eldorado, winner of the 1 1/8-mile grass stake last year. Other entrants are Bossanova, Journalism, Portoferraio, Bistro Garden, Blaze O’Brien and Modernise. Blaze O’Brien is the high weight at 118 pounds, one more than Journalism and three more than Man From Eldorado. Toussaud’s impost is 111 pounds.

Hollywood Gold Cup

A look at the field for today’s $750,000 race at Hollywood Park:

No. Horse Jockey Wt. Odds 1. Lottery Winner McCarron 114 20-1 2. Bertrando Solis 118 5-2 3. Campo Marizio Garcia 109 20-1 4. Rough Habit Dittman 117 15-1 5. Best Pal Black 121 9-5 6. Marquetry Desomeaux 118 5-2 7. Missionary Ridge Nakatani 115 5-2 8. Major Impact Stevens 113 12-1 9. Potrillon Pincay 115 15-1 10. Latin American Delahoussaye 117 7-2

* Trainers (by post position): 1. Robbins, 2. Frankel, 3. Mitchell, 4. Wheeler, 5. Jones, 6. Frankel, 7. Frankel, 8. Proctor, 9. Perdomo, 10 Marshall.

Distance: 1 1/4 miles

Post Time: 2:18 P.M. (approximate) TV: ESPN