HOLLYWOOD PARK : Afternoon Deelites Easily Wins Futurity

Whether it’s the Kentucky Derby or the Hollywood Futurity, Burt Bacharach gets nervous.

“I get more nervous when you’re (a) 3-5 (favorite),” Bacharach said. “In a horse race, you can’t stop the orchestra and say, ‘Let’s take it from the top again.’ ”

Afternoon Deelites, Bacharach’s latest Kentucky Derby hopeful, went off at 1-2 and calmed his owner on the far turn at Hollywood Park when he sailed past A.J. Jett and The Exeter Man en route to a 6 1/2-length victory in Sunday’s $500,000 Hollywood Futurity.

Afternoon Deelites will finish second to Timber Country, the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winner, in the Eclipse Awards voting, but the rivalry between these California-based Derby candidates will be settled on the track rather than through the ballot box.

Running 1 1/16 miles in 1:40 3/5, Afternoon Deelites galloped to the wire under Kent Desormeaux while tying the stakes record, set by Valiant Nature last year. He missed Power Forward’s 1987 track record by three-fifths of a second.

Trained by Richard Mandella, the undefeated Afternoon Deelites was responsible for the smallest field in Futurity history. Thunder Gulch ran second, finishing 10 lengths ahead of A.J. Jett, and The Exeter Man and Nice Fred completed the order of finish. The Exeter Man had the best excuse, rearing and throwing his rider in the gate and then bleeding so badly from the nostrils that Gary Stevens’ gold silks were a different color when he returned to the jockeys’ room.

Bacharach, the award-winning composer who has been breeding and racing horses for more than 25 years, was introduced to Derby goose bumps earlier this year when Soul of the Matter ran fifth at 16-1 at Churchill Downs. Soul of the Matter, a sore-footed horse who needed extra attention, finished the year with a victory in the Super Derby and a fourth in the Breeders’ Cup Classic and will be back in action this winter at Santa Anita.

“It’s unthinkable to have these two horses at the same time,” Bacharach said. “This is as good as it gets.”

After Afternoon Deelites began his career with victories at six and seven furlongs, Mandella was more concerned about last Sunday’s too-fast workout than he was the colt stretching out in distance for the Futurity.

“He finished strong at seven furlongs, and we weren’t adding that much to the distance,” Mandella said.

Bacharach shed more light on that 1:23 1/5 seven-furlong work a week ago. “I was standing next to Dick that morning,” he said. “He really did it in 1:22 4/5, according to Dick’s clock.”

In the Futurity, Afternoon Deelites wasn’t as close to the pace as he had been in the Hollywood Prevue five weeks ago, but he still was less than two lengths off the lead, in third place, while A.J. Jett turned in fractions of :22 4/5 and :46 after a half-mile.

“This is an aggressive, quick colt,” Mandella said. “Our job has been to get him to relax.”

On the far turn, the son of Private Terms and Intimate Girl was tired of waiting.

“He carried me around there,” Desormeaux said. “Effortlessly, that’s the word that sums it up. I guess this makes him super already. The thing is, he’s doing everything without being asked. So wait until we ask him. He got to those two leaders awful easy. He humbled me.”

Thunder Gulch, who had already won a stake around two turns, taking the Remsen at Aqueduct, was more than seven lengths behind going down the backstretch. Wayne Lukas, who trains Timber Country and Thunder Gulch, hailed Afternoon Deelites’ winning time, but additional compliments came grudgingly.

“It’s hard to evaluate,” Lukas said. “The one barometer you have in a race like this is time, and that was excellent. But again, time is one thing, and competition is another. My horse made a nice late run, and I thought he ran well, but I would have liked to have seen him a little closer early. (Timber Country) will have to deal with the winner, and there will be others. It will be an interesting spring. It’s never easy.”

Corey Nakatani, riding Thunder Gulch for the first time, believes the colt will improve.

“He was second best, but when this horse matures a little more, I think he’ll be able to compete with that other horse,” Nakatani said. “The other horse right now is real sharp and knows what’s going on. My horse, he just tends to do what he has to do. But the winner was impressive.”

Horse Racing Notes

Chris McCarron was riding at Hollywood Park Sunday after riding California-based Soviet Problem to a seventh-place finish in the $1.7-million Sprinters Stakes in Japan. Japanese horses continued to dominate their own races, with Sakura Bakushin O winning the Sprinters for the second year in a row and this time running the distance of about six furlongs in course-record time of 1:07 1/5. Honor the Hero, who battled Soviet Problem for the early lead in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint, finished eighth in Japan. Soviet Problem, who was second to Cherokee Run in the Breeders’ Cup, was beaten by more than seven lengths. . . . In another race in Japan, McCarron rode the 2-year-old Automatic to victory.

Nonproductiveasset, despite bleeding badly, won the Flying Continental Handicap Sunday at Hollywood Park. Second in the Strub and fifth in the Santa Anita Handicap, Nonproductiveasset was sidelined for eight months this year because of a bleeding problem. . . . In another race on the card, Saltgrass won for the third time in 17 starts, beating favored Pollock’s Luck by 1 3/4 lengths in the Manila Handicap. . . . Eddie Delahoussaye won three races for the second consecutive day.