HOLLYWOOD PARK : Color Purple Is Color of Money in the Juvenile Championship

Earlier this year, trainer Ron McAnally said he had a 2-year-old filly in his barn who might be as good as Mr Purple.

On July 14, that filly, Call Now, was beaten by a half-length in her first start, after the winner, Ski Dancer, bumped her at the top of the stretch.

Mr Purple, making only his second start, had no such trouble Monday, holding off a filly, Serena’s Song, to win the $102,600 Hollywood Juvenile Championship by a half-length on the last day of Hollywood Park’s 68-day meeting.

The only problems for Mr Purple were the ones the inexperienced son of Deputy Minister and Turk O Witz caused for himself in the paddock.

“He wasn’t hot, but he was fooling around,” McAnally said. “The first time he ran, he was a dream to saddle, and we schooled him in the paddock Sunday and he was all right.

“But today the crowd seemed to bother him. We pointed him in the direction of the crowd, and that didn’t work, so then we pointed him away from the crowd, and that didn’t work either. He kept lunging. We almost didn’t get him saddled.”

The victory by Mr Purple was McAnally’s second of the day, giving him the Hollywood training championship over Sandy Shulman, 25-24. The title didn’t faze McAnally as much as some other accomplishments. “Just give me those stakes wins,” he said.

Also winning Sunday’s Vanity Handicap with Potridee, McAnally led the meeting in stakes victories with seven.

McAnally’s bad news for the weekend was a set of X-rays for Valiant Nature, who has suffered a hairline fracture of the cannon bone on his left foreleg. The colt will undergo surgery today to have two screws inserted to fuse the break, with the recovery time eliminating the rest of his 3-year-old season.

Winless since the Hollywood Futurity in December, Valiant Nature ran 13th in the Kentucky Derby and was third as the favorite Saturday in the Swaps Stakes.

“We suspected that there was something wrong, for him to run as bad as he did Saturday,” McAnally said.

Trainer Wayne Lukas, who won the Juvenile twice with fillies, Terlingua in 1978 and Althea in 1983, didn’t get the hat trick with Serena’s Song, but still thought she might have been the best horse.

“I thought we’d be 1-2-3 early, but we were as far back as fifth at one point,” Lukas said. “Gary (Stevens) thought that the fractions would be too fast, so he settled her after the break, and then she caught some clods in her face. With a better trip, she could have been there. She was the one horse that was running the last eighth of a mile. I sure don’t think anything less of her after this race. She’ll go to Del Mar, and we’ll start running her against fillies again.”

Serena’s Song finished 1 1/2 lengths ahead of Lukas’ other starter, Cyrano. Mr Purple, who won his debut by three lengths on June 30, earned $57,600 for his breeder and owner, Alex G. Campbell Jr. of Lexington, Ky., who named the colt because his golfing partner, David Reynolds, usually wears that color. Reynolds is co-owner of Tabasco Cat, the Lukas trainee who won this year’s Preakness and Belmont Stakes.

Mr Purple, ridden by Chris McCarron, ran the first half-mile in 45 1/5 and finished six furlongs in 1:10, paying $4.40 as the slight favorite over Serena’s Song.

Mr Purple had a two-length lead over Cyrano with an eighth of a mile left and was 3 1/2 ahead of Serena’s Song.

“The winner just had too big a lead by the time I put my filly in full flight,” Stevens said. “I didn’t take her back leaving the gate. I just sat on her. I was going to lay second, but the horses on both sides were going, so I elected to fall back off the pace.”

Mr Purple didn’t break sharply, the ground under his back legs giving way. “He’s got a lot of speed, so he got into the race right away,” McCarron said. “The filly made him run hard to the wire.”

Horse Racing Notes

Alex Solis topped Gary Stevens, 78-74, for the riding title. Kent Desormeaux, winning at a 24% clip, the best of the regular riders, was third in the standings with 64 winners, one more than Chris Antley. . . . Hollywood Park’s on-track daily averages, 12,759 for attendance and $2.6 million for handle, were down from last year by 2.4% and 1.1%, respectively. Counting off-track business, the averages were 30,002 and $8.1 million, a gain of 10.6% in betting and a drop of 1.6% in attendance.