HOLLYWOOD PARK : Delahoussaye Plans to Return This Meeting

Eddie Delahoussaye, who underwent surgery Monday, hopes to be riding again by the final weekend of the Hollywood Park meeting, which ends July 25.

Plagued by sinusitis for several months, Delahoussaye underwent a sinusotomy, a cleaning of the nasal passages, and a septoplasty, which corrected a deviated septum. Glenn Weissmann performed the procedures in his San Gabriel clinic.

“Everything went well,” said Delahoussaye’s wife, Juanita. “They also found (and removed) a cyst in his left sinus cavity that they didn’t know existed.”

Delahoussaye rode three winners last weekend.

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Jockey Randy Romero, 36, who has battled injuries for much of his career, has retired.

A winner of 3,823 races and the regular rider of champions Personal Ensign and Go For Wand, Romero has been recuperating from knuckle and knee injuries suffered earlier this year at Churchill Downs.

In 1983, Romero was burned over 65% of his body in a jockeys’ room accident at Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs, Ark., and missed about four months of riding.

He suffered a broken collarbone and several broken ribs when Go For Wand broke down while battling Bayakoa in the 1990 Breeders’ Cup Distaff at Belmont Park.

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Best Pal, who hasn’t raced since finishing seventh in the San Antonio Handicap on Feb. 13, worked a mile in 1:37 3/5 Wednesday morning preparing for his comeback in the San Diego Handicap on July 30 at Del Mar.

“He’s doing real well,” said new trainer Richard Mandella.

Best Pal’s former trainer, Gary Jones, parted company with John Mabee’s Golden Eagle Farm earlier this year.

Bertrando, who hasn’t raced since finishing second in the Breeders’ Cup Classic last Nov. 6, may also return in the San Diego.

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The scopolamine hearings for seven trainers, six of whom work with thoroughbreds, have been continued once again.

Don Calabria, an attorney who represents four of the trainers--Ron McAnally, Mandella, Mark Hennig and Willard Proctor--requested the latest continuance, asking for more time to study lab results.

The hearings will now begin July 31 and continue through Aug. 8 before the Del Mar board of stewards.

Trainers Bill Shoemaker and Lewis Cenicola and harness trainer Jim Grundy also had horses that tested positive earlier this year for the prohibited drug. The trainers contend their horses tested positive after eating hay or straw which had been contaminated.

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Cool Air, who beat males in her last start, will try to knock off the boys again in Friday night’s $155,600 Hollywood Park Budweiser Breeders’ Cup at 5 1/2 furlongs on the turf.

A winner of five of six since coming to trainer Gary Jones late last year, Cool Air is unbeaten in two tries at the distance at Hollywood Park and both of them were under the lights.

Chris Antley will ride the 4-year-old Air Forbes Won filly, who has 11 victories in 25 races. She will carry top weight of 120 pounds.

From the rail out, the rest of the field includes Moscow Changes, El Trenzador, Bahatur, Bon Point, Chicmond, The Berkeley Man, Foreign Merger, D’Hallevant and Porto Varas.

Combined, the field has nine victories in 23 starts on the Hollywood Park turf.