For Frankel, It Is Not Possibly Perfect Position : Horse racing: His mare, an Eclipse Award favorite, draws post No. 3 for Sunday’s Yellow Ribbon Stakes, but trainer wonders about the Matriarch.

Has a trainer ever wanted a bad post position in a race? In a way, this is what Bobby Frankel hoped for when the numbers were drawn Friday for the $600,000 Yellow Ribbon Stakes at Santa Anita on Sunday.

Instead, Possibly Perfect, Frankel’s near-perfect 5-year-old mare, drew the No. 3 hole in a 14-horse field. That’s an advantageous spot for jockey Corey Nakatani and Possibly Perfect, who has shown good early speed while winning five of six starts in a campaign that could lead to an Eclipse Award for best distaffer on grass.

Had Possibly Perfect drawn an outside post, Frankel could easily have said thanks but no thanks to the Yellow Ribbon, and waited to run her in the $700,000 Matriarch at Hollywood Park on Nov. 26. Because those two 1 1/4-mile races are only two weeks apart, most horsemen won’t run in both.

Frankel has entered three horses in the Yellow Ribbon--Possibly Perfect, Wandesta and Privity-- and said Friday that he won’t decide until today which two he will run. All three horses are scheduled to gallop this morning at Hollywood Park.

“It’s a dilemma,” Frankel said. “Here I am, sitting here with a potential Eclipse Award winner, and I’m worrying. It’s just that she’s got a great chance to win the Eclipse, and I don’t want to screw it up.

“These are the things I’ve got to consider: Possibly Perfect drew a real good post. Most of the competition drew way outside. But then there’s one other factor--the Santa Anita turf course.”

In yet another make-over of its troubling grass course, Santa Anita spent more than $2 million to correct problems, but this has fallen far short of pleasing Frankel. Hot weather has restricted root growth on the course, and grass racing has been limited during the 32-day Oak Tree season that ends Monday.

“I know they’re saying that the turf course at Santa Anita is better now than it was earlier,” Frankel said. “But will the Santa Anita course ever be a great course? The course at Hollywood is in excellent condition right now.”

This year, Possibly Perfect’s foundation was carved out at Hollywood Park, but by no means is she a one-track wonder. She won the 1993 Yellow Ribbon, her first graded stakes victory, and this year won at Santa Anita before going on a stakes tear that netted victories in the Wilshire and Gamely handicaps at Hollywood, the Ramona Handicap at Del Mar and the Beverly D at Arlington International.

In her only loss this year, she ran second, 1 3/4 lengths behind Alpride, in the Beverly Hills Handicap. Alpride, also entered in the Yellow Ribbon, ran with a nine-pound edge in the Beverly Hills, on a day when Frankel was still nursing Possibly Perfect’s chronic hoof problem.

Whether Possibly Perfect runs Sunday or waits for the Matriarch, it will be the finale of a 19-race career that has already accounted for earnings of $1.3 million. Her owners, Robert and Geri Witt, plan to breed her next year, probably to Gone West.

The competition isn’t deep for the Eclipse Award the Witts covet, but Frankel said that a loss by Possibly Perfect at the end of the year, when the voters pay the most attention, might open the door for Perfect Arc, the New York filly who is undefeated in seven 1995 starts. Perfect Arc and Possibly Perfect have never met, and only one of Perfect Arc’s wins was in a Grade I race.

In post-position order, here is the lineup for the Yellow Ribbon:

Don’t Read My Lips, Angel In My Heart, Possibly Perfect, Real Connection, Bold Ruritana, Mz. Zill Bear, Tamise, Aube Indienne (last year’s winner), Privity, Wandesta, Capracotta, Onceinabluemamoon, Flagbird and Alpride.