THOROUGHBRED RACING / BILL CHRISTINE : Desormeaux Hates Being a Stand-Up Guy

Kent Desormeaux resumed riding Wednesday at Hollywood Park, still chagrined about his $1-million mistake in the Japan Cup, but more than willing to talk about it.

Desormeaux’s candor about misjudging the finish line with Kotashaan in the $3.6-million race on Nov. 28 might even earn him a guest spot on a late-night talk show. It’s unlikely that even winning the Japan Cup with Kotashaan would have created such interest.

About a sixteenth of a mile from the finish line, Desormeaux stood up on Kotashaan, who had already been through a horrible trip. Kotashaan, winner of the $2-million Breeders’ Cup Turf at Santa Anita on Nov. 6 and a horse-of-the-year contender in North America, was a half-length behind and closing the gap on the Japanese-based horse, Legacy World, when Desormeaux stood up in the irons. Legacy World won by 1 1/4 lengths, earning almost $1.6 million, while Kotashaan’s owners settled for the second-place purse of $635,000.

“I was very embarrassed,” Desormeaux said between races at Hollywood Park on Wednesday. “I felt like this was something that a class-one rider is not supposed to do. I wanted to crawl into a hole and hide.”

Desormeaux said that he was also guilty of poor riding earlier in the race.

“I don’t know how much misjudging the finish line cost him, but he lost four lengths earlier in the race, and he only got beat by about a length,” he said. “I used bad judgment turning for home. We were trapped on the inside, and by the time I got him clear, it had cost us four lengths. Earlier than that, on the first turn, we were almost dropped, and my horse’s nose was barely off the ground.”

When Desormeaux watched the television replay with Richard Mandella, Kotashaan’s trainer, he felt even worse. Mandella, trying to console the jockey, reminded Desormeaux that Bill Shoemaker had cost Gallant Man the 1957 Kentucky Derby, standing up before they reached the wire.

“I wanted to bang my head against the wall and tell him I was sorry,” Desormeaux said.

Desormeaux disagreed with the stewards about misjudging the finish in an earlier race on the Japan Cup card. That brought a reprimand and then he was fined $460, the maximum penalty other than a suspension, for his mistake in the Japan Cup. Desormeaux said that in the earlier race, he was still riding the horse to the wire, with his whip ready, even though the stewards felt he had quit before the finish.

Desormeaux was critical of the postrace remarks made by Hideo Kawachi, who rode Legacy World.

“He had the guts to say that his horse was waiting on my horse,” Desormeaux said. “He was quoted as saying that every time my horse came close to his, he had a ton of horse left. The Japanese perception was that there was no way that Kotashaan could win the race.”

Despite winning the national money title in 1992 with $14.1 million in purses and ranking third this year with more than $12 million, Desormeaux has been in trouble with California stewards, who have fined and suspended him for not riding out horses to the wire.

He indicated Wednesday that he’s going to change his riding style.

“There’s no more room for me to toy around and be silly coming in to the wire,” he said. “I’ve got to go back to showing off.”

A year ago this Saturday, Desormeaux was kicked in the head at Hollywood Park by a trailing horse when his mount, close to victory, bore out in the stretch and dumped the jockey. Desormeaux was hospitalized, but resumed riding seven weeks later.

“After that, I didn’t know if I’d be alive,” Desormeaux said. “Now I’m a candidate for an Eclipse Award, and I guess I’m fortunate just to be where I am.”

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With Bobby Frankel unwilling to train Bertrando under a unique breeding-racing arrangement next year, one of the colt’s owners needn’t look any farther than himself to find a replacement.

“I don’t know who’ll be training Bertrando,” said Eddie Nahem, who bred the probable Eclipse Award winner and races him in partnership with Marshall Naify. “That’s five or six months down the road. But I do hope to get my trainer’s license by the end of the year, and by the first of February I hope to be training about 14 horses at Hollywood Park.”

When Frankel heard that Nahem and Naify were going to breed Bertrando to dozens of mares before he resumes a racing career this summer, he more or less used the old Samuel P. Goldwyn line: Include me out.

“I didn’t want to be part of this,” Frankel was quoted in the Daily Racing Form.

Bertrando, currently recuperating from knee surgery after running second to Arcangues in the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Santa Anita last month, may win an Eclipse as North America’s best older horse on dirt.

Before the Classic, Bertrando had a shot at horse of the year. “We didn’t figure on the phantom,” Nahem said. “Arcangues was the Grinch who spoiled Christmas.”

Frankel is assured of his first national training title, his stable having earned $8.8 million this year. Nahem and Naify hired Frankel to replace Bruce Headley as trainer in 1992. Headley trained Bertrando for three stakes victories and second-place finishes in the 1991 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile and the 1992 Santa Anita Derby.

“Bobby’s an excellent horseman, no question about that,” Nahem said. “But this Bertrando thing was something that just couldn’t be worked out.”

Horse Racing Notes

Trainer Richard Mandella has been notified by Kotashaan’s Japanese owners that the horse is being retired from racing to begin a stud career. . . . Louis and Patrice Wolfson, who bred and race Flawlessly, have told trainer Charlie Whittingham that the mare will race again in 1994. Flawlessly is expected to win an Eclipse Award for best female on grass for the second year in a row. . . . The Gary Jones hearing has been extended to next Wednesday. The Hollywood Park stewards heard about six hours of testimony last week regarding Jones, who received a complaint from the California Horse Racing Board after his horse, Capel, tested positive for a prohibited medication following a race at Del Mar in August. . . . Sunday’s $500,000 Hollywood Turf Cup shapes up as a five-horse race that includes Bien Bien and Fraise, who were 1-2 in the stake a year ago. Fraise won the race by a nose and then was disqualified by the stewards for interference in the stretch. Sunday’s other probables are Know Heights, Explosive Red and Jeune Homme. . . . Sylvan Goldinger, 70, the originator of Sully Stables, died last Saturday of heart failure. His most well known horse was Patchy Groundfog, the last horse that Bill Shoemaker rode.