Thunder Gulch Wins Another

Kentucky Derby winner Thunder Gulch rallied from fifth to win the $400,000 Kentucky Cup Classic and partly atone for the earlier loss of stablemate Serena’s Song at Turfway Park in Florence, Ky.

It was the fourth consecutive victory for Thunder Gulch and kept him on target for a showdown with Cigar in the Breeders’ Cup Classic on Oct. 28 at Belmont Park.

“I think it would make a great climax to the season,” said Michael Tabor, owner of Thunder Gulch.

Tabor and trainer Wayne Lukas said Thunder Gulch might have one more race before the showdown.

“Wayne will make the call,” Tabor said. “Who am I? I just pay the bills.”

Thunder Gulch ran 1 1/8 miles in 1:49 2/5, nearly three seconds off Hansel’s track record.

Mariah’s Storm blew by 1-5 favorite Serena’s Song on the far turn and went on to win the $200,000 Grade II Turfway Budweiser Breeders’ Cup by 5 1/2 lengths.

Mariah’s Storm is three for three this year after being off from November to August.

Golf

U.S. Open champion Annika Sorenstam shot a two-under-par 70 in the third round of the LPGA’s Heartland Classic at St. Louis to take a 10-stroke lead with one round to play.

Sorenstam, who is at 10-under 206, had her third bogey-free day at the 6,740-yard Forest Hills Country Club, while a seemingly demoralized field--no one else was under par at the end of the day--fell further behind.

“I’ve never had a lead like this before,” the 24-year-old Swede said. “I don’t know what I’m doing differently. I don’t know why they aren’t making more birdies.”

Tied at par 216 are Jan Stephenson, Robin Walton, Mitzi Edge and Pat Hurst.

D.A. Weibring has a four-stroke lead in the suspended second round of the Quad City Classic at Coal Valley, Ill.

Play was stopped because of darkness, with two groups left on the course. Weibring shot a five-under-par 65 and is at 11-under 129, four shots ahead of Jay Delsing and Jonathan Kaye.

Jim Dent survived a stretch of seven bogeys over nine holes to keep a share of the lead with four others after two rounds of the Bank One Classic at Lexington, Ky.

Dent faltered to a two-over-par 74 while trying to overcome windy conditions and crusty greens on the Kearney Hill Links and stands at one-under 143, tied with George Archer, defending champion Isao Aoki, Raymond Floyd and Mike Hill.

Auto Racing

Ernie Irvan’s return to race competition was postponed for at least a week when qualifying for Saturday’s Goody’s 150 NASCAR SuperTruck race was rained out at Martinsville, Va.

The time trials, which were rained out Friday, were started Saturday, but the rain returned after only six drivers posted qualifying speeds.

Officials still were hoping to get the 150-lap race in later Saturday at Martinsville Speedway, but the intermittent rain forced NASCAR to revert to its backup plan, lining up the cars by order of season points and postmarks on entry blanks.

Irvan, who has not raced since a terrifying crash in a Winston Cup car Aug. 20, 1994, at Michigan International Speedway, has no points and did not file his entry early enough to qualify for the 36-car field.

Scotsman David Coulthard outraced team leader Damon Hill, clinching the pole position for the Portuguese Grand Prix at Estoril in an impressive 1-2 finish for Williams-Renault’s revamped racers.

Defending world champion Michael Schumacher will start today’s race from the third spot on the grid. His Benetton-Renault was more than seven-tenths of a second behind Coulthard’s fastest time of 1 minute 20.537 seconds, around the 2.709-mile circuit.

Hill was 0.368 seconds behind Coulthard. Hill needs a victory to stay close to Schumacher in the championship race. The German has 66 points to the Briton’s 51 with five races to go.

Boxing

Mexico’s Manuel Medina (51-6) won a 12-round split decision over countryman Alejandro Gonzalez (37-3) at Sacramento to take Gonzalez’s World Boxing Council featherweight title.

Filipino boxer Fernando Piccio, 22, was in serious condition on a life support system at Royal Brisbane Hospital in Australia, a day after sustaining a suspected brain hemorrhage and being taken from the ring on a stretcher following a seventh-round knockout loss to Australian Selwyn Currie in a lightweight bout.

Miscellany

Britain’s Linford Christie became the first sprinter to break 10 seconds for 100 meters in Africa, taking a victory in 9.97 at the inaugural All African International Invitational at Johannesburg, South Africa.

Magdalena Maleeva overcame a slow start in a rare morning final today to defeat Russia’s Yelena Makarova, 6-4, 6-2, in 59 minutes and win the indoor Moscow Ladies Open for the second consecutive year. The final began at 10:30 a.m. local time so as not to interfere with the Germany-Russia Davis Cup semifinal being played on an adjacent court in Olympic Stadium.

Top-seeded Holly McPeak and Nancy Reno won the Women’s Pro Beach Volleyball Tour event at Lihue, Hawaii, for the fifth year in a row, defeating Cammy Ciarelli and Barbra Fontana Harris, 15-7, in the championship match.

UCLA junior Jeremy Braxton-Brown lofted a shot over the head of USC goalie Brendan Grubbs with 42 seconds remaining, giving the host Bruins a 10-9 water polo victory over the top-ranked Trojans.

Tom Dolan, the first swimmer to set three American records in one year since Matt Biondi in 1987, was selected U.S. Swimming’s swimmer of the year for the second consecutive year.

Seventeen former and current Illinois State athletes have filed a lawsuit against the school claiming sexual harassment, gender and racial discrimination.

The lawsuit caps efforts by male soccer players and wrestlers to persuade Illinois State to reinstate the two sports, which were dropped in March. Also a women’s basketball player alleges in the same complaint that she was the victim of racial and sexual harassment by coaches and teammates.