THOROUGHBRED RACING : Lakeway, Sardula Will Tangle Again in the Hollywood Oaks

New York has been both kind and cruel to trainer Gary Jones in recent weeks.

Last Monday, Jones ran Kingdom Found in the $350,000 Suburban Handicap at Belmont Park. It was a long way to travel for a colt to finish last and be beaten by more than 15 lengths. Jones could have stayed home and run Kingdom Found in the $750,000 Hollywood Gold Cup, over a track on which the horse came within a neck of beating The Wicked North last month.

Jones’ rationale was that he had only one horse to beat at Belmont, Devil His Due, and that Kingdom Found would carry nine pounds less than the favorite there, compared with only a six-pound break against The Wicked North at Hollywood Park.

“It was a good idea that didn’t work,” said Jones, back at his barn office at Hollywood Park. “We didn’t do anything where we went, and we didn’t hurt the winner here (Slew Of Damascus) by staying away.”

Jones’ previous trip to Belmont, for the Mother Goose Stakes on June 12, was more enjoyable. Lakeway, his talented 3-year-old filly, easily defeated a field that included Inside Information, the New York-based filly who had won her two Belmont starts by 18 1/2 lengths.

Five weeks before the Mother Goose, Lakeway went into the Kentucky Oaks undefeated, but her four-race streak came to an end when she lost a tight finish against Sardula at Churchill Downs.

These results, combined with Sardula’s easy victory in the Princess Stakes at Hollywood on June 18, form the backdrop for another Lakeway-Sardula showdown, in Sunday’s $200,000 Hollywood Oaks.

Indicative of the respect for Lakeway and Sardula, only eight other fillies were nominated for the 1 1/8-mile race, and only two--Fancy ‘N Fabulous and Sportful Snob--are expected to run. Lakeway drew the rail, and outside her in the gate, in order, will be Sardula, Fancy ‘N Fabulous and Sportful Snob. All will carry 121 pounds.

“It says something for the owners of these two fillies that they’re not ducking one another,” Jones said. “They should put on a good show. It’s the kind of a race where you want to see the best horse win.”

Lakeway, having won the Las Virgenes and Santa Anita Oaks in California, was sent to Churchill Downs early, so she could train over the track and Jones and her owner-breeder, Mike Rutherford, could determine whether to run her in the Kentucky Oaks on May 6 or against colts in the Kentucky Derby on May 7.

But after a mile workout on April 28, something wasn’t right about Lakeway, and Jones couldn’t get to the bottom of it.

“We’d gallop her, and she’d be perfect,” the trainer said. “Then we’d jog her and she’d be lame.”

Valuable training time was lost. By race week, Jones wasn’t able to get another workout for his filly. A protective rubber boot caused a hoof infection, similar to what bothered Soul Of The Matter as he prepared for the Kentucky Derby this spring.

Three days before the Kentucky Oaks, Jones decided to send Lakeway to a clinic at Lexington, Ky., 70 miles away, for a full checkup. The filly had to be tranquilized for the trip.

“It was pouring rain, all the way over to Lexington,” Jones said. “In the clinic, she was surrounded by all these horses that were coughing, and I was afraid that she might catch something. The X-rays came out fine, they didn’t find anything. But I was still going into a race without the preparations that you’d like to have. I didn’t have her as right as I would have liked.”

Sardula, who usually sprints to the lead, dropped back in the Oaks, as jockey Eddie Delahoussaye let some other speedy fillies set the pace. On the far turn, there were three horses ahead of Sardula, who was getting dirt kicked in her face for the first time, and Kent Desormeaux was outside Delahoussaye’s filly, preventing her from going around.

“I can’t blame Kent for the way he rode the race,” Jones said. “He had Sardula right up on the rear ends of those other horses. But when Kent went on with Lakeway, the horses ahead of Sardula opened up, and she was able to get through. Maybe we would have got beat anyway, because Sardula is a racehorse son of a gun, and Brian (Mayberry) did a heck of a training job with her. He got her ready for a tough mile and an eighth off of just one sprint race at Santa Anita.”

Lakeway got ready for the Hollywood Oaks by working five furlongs in 58 4/5 on Tuesday. That was the fastest of 34 horses working that distance at Hollywood that day, with the next fastest time 59 2/5. For Jones, Lakeway’s work may have been too fast. But, looking back to Kentucky, it was better than no work at all.

Horse Racing Notes

Eddie Delahoussaye has won three of the last five runnings of the Hollywood Oaks, with Hollywood Wildcat last year, Fowda in 1991 and Gorgeous in 1989. Kent Desormeaux won the stake with Pacific Squall in 1992. . . . Alex Solis, the leading rider at the Hollywood Park meeting, will ride Fancy ‘N Fabulous, and Pat Valenzuela has the assignment on Sportful Snob. . . . Fancy ‘N Fabulous was second, 5 1/2 lengths behind Sardula, in the Princess, and ran second, three lengths behind Lakeway, in the Las Virgenes. . . . Sportful Snob was 9-1 when she won the Railbird Stakes by four lengths on June 5.