HOLLYWOOD PARK : Fraise Easily Wins the Turf Cup

Chris McCarron, who got the chance to ride Sunday Silence to victory as a backup jockey in the $3-million Breeders’ Cup Classic in 1989, won with another Pat Valenzuela hand-me-down Sunday, riding Fraise to a six-length victory in the $500,000 Hollywood Turf Cup.

McCarron’s opportunity at Gulfstream Park with Sunday Silence came after Valenzuela tested positive for cocaine and was suspended by the Santa Anita stewards. McCarron got the assignment on Sunday after Valenzuela called the Hollywood Park stewards in the morning to tell them that he was sick.

“Are you sure, Pat?” said steward Dave Samuel, who answered the phone.

“Yes, I’m sure,” Valenzuela said.

“Well, OK, if you’re sure,” said Samuel, who by then already knew that Bien Bien, the 7-5 morning-line favorite, had been scratched from the Turf Cup because of a soggy grass course.

Valenzuela’s drug history inevitably surfaces with his every absence, especially when lucrative races are involved. Hawkster won the Oak Tree Invitational in 1989 with a substitute jockey and My Sonny Boy won the California Cup Classic without Valenzuela in 1990.

Part of the terms of Valenzuela’s 1989 suspension was allowing the stewards to test him for drugs three times a week.

“That part of the deal is almost up,” Samuel said Sunday. “In fact, it ends at the end of the year, unless we choose to extend it. What good has it done? You test and you test, and then the guy still doesn’t show up for a race like this. It always seems like he’s missing for the big races.”

Madeleine Paulson, who owns Fraise, and her husband, Allen, who bred the Strawberry Road-Zalataia horse, were not contacted by Valenzuela. Paulson once used Valenzuela to ride all of their horses, for an annual retainer that was reportedly in the high six figures, but he discontinued the arrangement last winter after Valenzuela called in sick and McCarron took over for Corby’s victory in the San Felipe Stakes at Santa Anita.

Asked about Valenzuela on Sunday, Madeleine Paulson said: “By now, I’m used to rolling with the punches. I’ve experienced enough highs and lows in this game to get used to this sort of thing.”

McCarron, who won his first Turf Classic with John Henry in 1983, has now won the stake six out of the last nine times he has ridden in it. He had been scheduled to ride Bien Bien on Sunday in what would have been a rematch of the race last year, when Fraise won by a nose but lost the purse when the stewards disqualified him in favor of McCarron’s mount.

McCarron was stepping out of the steam room about a half-hour before Sunday’s first race when Charlie McCaul, the clerk of scales, asked him if he’d be available to ride Fraise.

“Are you kidding!” McCarron said.

Bill Mott, Fraise’s trainer, said that one factor in giving McCarron the mount was that he had been willing to exercise Fraise one morning before last year’s Turf Cup, even though he knew he had the mount on Bien Bien.

“Another thing is that Chris has a reputation for winning these kind of races,” Mott said.

Approaching the quarter pole, Fraise was in third place, behind Explosive Red and Know Heights, when McCarron swung the 5-year-old from the rail to the outside for the stretch drive. Fraise blew past both of the leaders in mid-stretch to win by the biggest margin in stake history. Know Heights, ridden by Kent Desormeaux, finished second, a half-length better than Explosive Red and jockey Gary Stevens. Favored Fraise, running 1 1/2 miles in 2:32 1/5, paid $4.80.

“I’m just glad to be sitting on this side of the irony,” McCarron said. “I was thinking about staying on the fence, because Gary had been sitting about two or three horses off the rail, but when the horses behind me weren’t coming, I decided to swing my horse to the outside. When I got to the outside, the race was over.”

A year ago, Fraise won the Breeders’ Cup Turf and finished second to Sky Classic in the Eclipse Awards voting for best male on grass. This year, after winning the Pan American Handicap in March at Gulfstream, Fraise suffered a splint injury while finishing third in the San Juan Capistrano Handicap in April and didn’t run again until October. He had a troubled trip in the Breeders’ Cup Turf at Santa Anita last month and finished fourth. Sunday’s victory, worth $275,000, was Fraise’s ninth in 25 starts and increased his earnings to $2.2 million.

Horse Racing Notes

Besides Fraise, two other horses scheduled to be ridden by Pat Valenzuela won Sunday. Alex Solis took over on Spirited Susan and I’m Checkin’ Out and wound up with a three-win day. . . . Valenzuela began Sunday with 16 victories for the meet, which ranked him third behind Corey Nakatani and Solis. With Nakatani riding in Hong Kong, Solis moved to the top with 20 victories.

In a race that was part of the betting card at Hollywood, Ranger beat El Atroz by a nose in the $100,000 Bay Meadows Derby.