DEL MAR : Something That Hasn’t Changed: Desormeaux-Hess Still Winning

The ambience is different--the result of an $80-million rebuilding project over the last two years--but there was also a sameness Wednesday as Del Mar opened its 54th racing season.

Under overcast skies that brought a drizzle several hours before the first race, everything came up sunshine and greenbacks at the parimutuel windows for those who supported the boys of last summer, trainer Bob Hess Jr. and jockey Kent Desormeaux.

The leaders of their respective departments a year ago, when Hess saddled 22 winners and Desormeaux rode 68, they successfully teamed up in the first half of the Oceanside Stakes when the French import, Guide, found a hole on the inside with about a sixteenth of a mile left to register a 3/4-length victory.

The on-track attendance was 27,577, the biggest opener in the era of off- track betting, which began in 1988, but more than 2,000 short of the track record, set on opening day in 1987.

Guide, whose consistent French record of two wins and four seconds from nine starts brought him the favorite’s role, paid $5 to win while earning $67,387 for his four owners--Mike Sloan, George Wong, Marvin Susemihl and Robert Steiber.

Joining them in the winner’s circle was Hubert Guy, the bloodstock agent who had picked out Guide for purchase. “The consistency of his record brought him to my attention,” Guy said. “He should have won his last race (a third-place finish on June 6), but he got the lead too soon and was headed by a couple of other horses at the wire.”

Out of 15 Oceansides that have been run in divisions, no trainer and only one jockey--Eddie Delahoussaye--has scored a sweep, and Hess and Desormeaux were not up to that achievement, even though their other horse, Nominator, was the 2-1 favorite in the second half. Nominator got lost in a crowd of horses at the top of the stretch and finished off the board as Dare To Duel, at 4-1, scored a one-length victory for Gary Stevens, riding his third winner of the day.

Guide, who was running on Lasix, the bleeders’ medication, for the first time, arrived at Hess’ barn a week ago Wednesday. The 3-year-old colt’s conduct before the race gave the 28-year-old trainer concern.

“His form made me confident, but I thought his manners might get him in trouble,” Hess said. “He was tough to handle in the paddock and rank in the post-parade.”

Der Rosenkavalier, the biggest price in the 10-horse field at 46-1, finished second behind Guide, a half-length ahead of The Real Vaslav, also a longshot at 20-1. Guide’s time for the mile on grass was 1:36 2/5, which was 1 1/5 seconds slower than Dare To Duel’s clocking about 90 minutes later. The course was listed as firm, but the moisture from the morning left the going on the soft side, which frequently favors foreign horses.

“I had Jolypha deja vu,” Desormeaux said about Guide’s trip. “All the way around the track, I was concerned about finding room.”

In the four-horse Beverly Hills Handicap at Hollywood Park on June 27, Desormeaux cost the talented filly Jolypha a victory chance when they got hemmed in on the fence while Flawlessly romped to an easy victory.

Guide trailed four horses for the first three-quarters of a mile. Devil Diamond, Der Rosenkavalier, Pleasedontexplain and Deverdad were up front, running slow fractions. On the turn for home, Deverdad came between Der Rosenkavalier and Devil Diamond to loom dangerously, but in the stretch Guide and Desormeaux bulled their way between Der Rosenkavalier and Deverdad in the decisive move.

The second half of the Oceanside was an all-American production, starring a Florida-bred trained by Eddie Gregson and owned by a 20-member syndicate. Gregson hadn’t won a stake here since 1990, but this track was his hope chest in 1981, when Gato Del Sol won the Del Mar Futurity the year before they went on to win the Kentucky Derby.

Dare To Duel also ran in the Del Mar Futurity, finishing fifth last year, and his only win since then had been in the allowance ranks at Hollywood Park in May. This time he held off a French invader, Honor And Pride, who took second place, a half-length ahead of Chayim.

Stevens hadn’t ridden Dare To Duel since the Kris S. colt broke his maiden on dirt at Del Mar last August.

“At that time, I thought he was an overachiever,” Stevens said. “That was because of his real high-strung attitude. But Eddie has done a great job with him, getting him to relax, and he’s matured, too.”

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Joe Harper, the general manager of Del Mar, reported that the new plant survived a hectic opener with few problems, and he said that Gov. Pete Wilson was also pleased after taking a tour.

“The important thing is, the plant works,” Harper said. “There was a lot of crowding, which made me think that we didn’t make it big enough. The governor had to be pleased, seeing a project that was brought in $14 million under the budget, a year early, and not costing one cent of the taxpayers’ money.”

Horse Racing Notes

The winners of all three of Wednesday’s claiming races were claimed, with trainers Mike Goodin, Sam Aldabbagh and Sandy Shulman adding to their barns. . . . Dan Hendricks, who lost one of the claimed horses (Irrefutable), saddled the winner of seventh race--Rathsallah. . . . The Wednesday-through-Monday schedule resumes today with the Wickerr Handicap, which is only a $60,000 race but has drawn some accomplished grass runners, including Blaze O’Brien, who’s earned $654,880. Trainer Bobby Frankel, who won the Wickerr last year with Luthier Enchanteur, is running Idle Son, a recent arrival from France via Rockingham Park, where he won a stake but was disqualified for interference.

Paul Atkinson, who was named to ride We Say Do in Friday’s $75,000 California Thoroughbred Breeders Assn. Stakes for 2-year-old fillies, has been idle since breaking a collarbone in a motorcycle accident six weeks ago. In his Del Mar debut a year ago, Atkinson rode 17 winners, including longshots at 102-1 and 77-1. . . . River Special, who missed this year’s Triple Crown because of a splint injury after winning last year’s Del Mar Futurity, is at John and Betty Mabee’s farm in Ramona, where he’ll resume training on Aug. 15. River Special isn’t likely to return to action until the end of the year. . . . The countdown on Laffit Pincay’s bid for 8,000 wins is at 7,980 after his victory on El Meteroro in the third. . . . Dare To Duel was bought at a yearling auction for $24,000.