Win More of a Detriment Than a Bonus for Mandella

Trainer Richard Mandella had the look of a man who found a wad of money, then was told by his bank that it had been printed in somebody’s basement.

“It would have been nice to have won the bonus, but it was also nice to win the race,” Mandella said Sunday with his best stiff upper lip. Then he was off to find and console Sergio Coutinho de Menezes, the Brazilian businessman and breeder whose Sandpit missed the $280,000 bonus when Mandella’s other horse, Talloires, pulled off an upset in the $700,000 Caesars Palace Turf Championship.

Sandpit won the bonus last year by sweeping the Caesars International at Atlantic City and the Caesars Palace at Hollywood, but after winning the first of the two grass races this year, De Menezes’ 6-year-old was defeated by his stablemate and finished third, more than 2 1/2 lengths behind Talloires. Between Mandella’s duo at the wire was Awad, who showed late foot to beat out Sandpit by a head for second place.

The Caesars race was the start of a stakes-filled day at Hollywood. In later action:

--Jewel Princess, under an aggressive ride by Corey Nakatani, won the $250,000 Vanity Handicap by three lengths, defeating Serena’s Song, last year’s champion filly, for the second time this year.

--Victory Speech, who has two wins and a second in three starts since two far-back Triple Crown finishes, beat his stablemate, Prince Of Thieves, by 3 1/2 lengths to win the $500,000 Swaps Stakes.

--Undefeated Swiss Yodeler won for the fourth time, all at the Hollywood meet, by defeating Red by a head in the $100,000 Hollywood Juvenile. Alex Solis, who rode the winner, dropped his whip in midstretch and hit the colt with a pair of goggles the rest of the way.

Even though Talloires hadn’t run in 7 1/2 months, and was a day short of the one-year anniversary of his last win, his owners anted up a $25,000 supplementary fee to get him in Sunday’s race. Fourth with a half-mile to run under Kent Desormeaux, the son of Arc de Triomphe winner Trempolino made the lead at the head of the stretch and won with only one light shoulder tap from Desormeaux’s whip.

Desormeaux learned long ago that the independent-minded Talloires is not a horse to bully.

“The first time I ever spanked him, he lugged in to the whip,” Desormeaux said. “I’ve spanked him once in a while since, but never without caution.”

Earning $420,000 and boosting his purse total to $1.1 million, Talloires ran 1 1/2 miles in 2:23 3/5, breaking Rivlia’s 1987 course record by three-fifths of a second. The second-longest price in the seven-horse field, Talloires paid $28.80 for his fifth victory in 19 starts. He returned to training about two months ago after surgery for a fractured splint bone.

“Maybe he had one splint too many,” Mandella said. “He ran faster without it.”

Talloires’ owners--Charles-Henri de Moussac, Hollywood Park chairman R.D. Hubbard and Ed Allred, the co-owner of Los Alamitos Race Course--coerced Mandella into running. In the beginning, Hubbard wanted Talloires in the race to assure a six-horse field, which would cover the insurance requirements for the bonus, but when the horse turned in a couple good mile workouts, his interests were given the best reason of all to run.

Sandpit, ridden by Nakatani, carried high weight of 125 pounds, nine more than Talloires.

The Vanity had a happier ending for Nakatani, who was in fourth place before a dramatic, horse-splitting move nearing the far turn. He rode Jewel Princess to a convincing 1 1/8-mile win in 1:47, fastest time for the race since Princess Rooney’s 1:46 1/5 in 1984.

Nakatani, who won six stakes aboard Serena’s Song before they finished 16th together in last year’s Kentucky Derby, thought he was going to regain the mount when the filly returned to California.

“But they gave her to [Jerry] Bailey,” he said. “That just made my decision [about which filly to ride] a lot easier. A sweet win? Just a little bit.”

Horse Notes

Letthebighossroll was a 1 1/2-length winner in the $71,500 Answer Do Stakes. The 8-year-old gelding wasn’t the oldest winner on the card, however, because in the race before the Answer Do, Rocket Gibralter, a 9-year-old, ran for the 100th time and notched his 23rd victory.