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HOLLYWOOD PARK : Pirate’s Revenge Needs No Vices in Bayakoa ‘Cap

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

Trainer Ron Ellis didn’t need an extra-horse advantage to win Sunday’s $106,900 Bayakoa Handicap at Hollywood Park. Scratching Twice The Vice because he thought her weight assignment was too high, Ellis still beat Urbane, the odds-on favorite, when Pirate’s Revenge scored a 3 1/2-length victory under Chris Antley.

Urbane, a stakes winner in Kentucky and Maryland, has been beaten four consecutive times in California, but the other losses came against Serena’s Song, who’s a cinch to be voted an Eclipse Award as the year’s best 3-year-old filly.

While Urbane and her jockey, Corey Nakatani, were battling the inside horse, Klassy Kim, for the lead on the far turn, Pirate’s Revenge swept by both of them with a quick burst from the outside. Urbane, who went off at 7-10, finished second, 2 3/4 lengths better than Ashtabula, in a field that was whittled to five by two other scratches.

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Pirate’s Revenge, whose win payoff would have been much shorter had she run as an entry with Twice The Vice, paid $7 as the second choice. Racing for her breeders, Marty and Pam Wygod, the California-bred daughter of Pirate’s Bounty and Symbolically ran 1 1/16 miles in 1:41 4/5, which was three-fifths of a second slower than the stakes record set by Golden Klair when she won the 1993 running. Golden Klair finished fourth Sunday.

Randy Bradshaw, who trains Urbane, thought his filly would have been better served if Nakatani had moved sooner.

“The other filly got the jump on us,” Bradshaw said. “By the time my horse got in gear, the other filly was well past us. Then we had to switch lanes and go outside in the stretch. But I don’t want to be making excuses. We got beat by a quality filly.”

Urbane, injured while finishing second in the Kentucky Oaks at Churchill Downs in May, began her comeback by winning the Maryland Million Oaks in October, when Nakatani rode her for the first time.

“My filly didn’t want to run up close to the lead,” Nakatani said after Sunday’s race. “They were walking [the first half-mile was run in :47 1/5], and sprinting is not her game. My filly just doesn’t have that turn of foot. She’s steady, and I was trying to get her to go at about the three-eighths pole, and she wouldn’t go.”

It was at the three-eighths pole that Ellis sensed victory.

“My filly was under a hold and the others were struggling,” the trainer said.

Pirate’s Revenge carried 119 pounds, one less than Urbane. Twice The Vice would have carried the same weight as Urbane, but Ellis and Marty Wygod made the decision Saturday to scratch the filly that the Wygods bought last year for $1 million.

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“I thought Twice The Vice should have carried about what Klassy Kim got [117 pounds],” Ellis said.

Twice The Vice, sidelined for more than nine months, won a small stake at Hollywood on Nov. 15.

“But that was on the grass, and it was her comeback race,” Ellis said. “Marty doesn’t like to run his horses against one another, anyway, and if we ran with 120 pounds this time and won, the weights would only keep going up.”

Pirate’s Revenge is a consistent filly. She has nine victories, six seconds and one third in 20 starts, and Sunday’s $61,900 purse sent her earnings over $500,000.

“Pirate’s Revenge is good again,” Antley said. “Ron told me in the paddock that he thought she was back, and that she had been training unbelievably. He told me just to ride her with confidence.”

After winning the $150,000 Milady Handicap at Hollywood in late June, Pirate’s Revenge ran a fever and missed the $300,000 Vanity Handicap a month later. She didn’t run again until last month at Santa Anita, where she was last in the Cascapedia Handicap and second to Yearly Tour in the California Cup Matron Handicap.

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“Marty told me after the Vanity that he planned to run Pirate’s Revenge for another year,” Ellis said. “So it made sense to give her a nice long rest to get her ready for next year.”

The Wygods still won the Vanity, with Private Persuasion, trained by Dan Hendricks. For the Wygods, it hasn’t been a bad tactic: Leave one horse in the barn and make do with what’s left.

Horse Racing Notes

Twice The Vice is a candidate for the $100,000 Dahlia Handicap on Dec. 24, a turf race on closing day at Hollywood. The filly has won the Del Mar Oaks on grass and Ron Ellis’ goal next year is to win a Grade I dirt race with her. “I don’t know if she’s as good on dirt as she is on grass,” Ellis said, “but it would be nice to do and help her breeding value. Not many fillies have won Grade I’s on both grass and dirt.” . . . Probable entries for next Sunday’s $500,000 Hollywood Turf Cup are Northern Spur, Earl Of Barking, Hollywood Dream, Party Season, Patio De Naranjos, Privity, Royal Chariot, Suave Tern, Talloires, Tikkanen and Parme, a French colt who is a recent purchase by C.N. Ray’s Evergreen Farm. . . . Trainer Bobby Frankel saddled another grass winner at the meet when Tychonic and Gary Stevens found room on the rail to beat Anchor by a neck in the Lure Stakes. . . . Frankel’s turf winner Saturday, Interim, is headed for Florida, where there’s another 1 1/2-mile race, the $150,000 La Prevoyante, at Calder on Dec. 23.

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