Running Flame Runs to Turf Cap Victory

Trainer Mike Puype recently lost the biggest potential earner in his barn when Cobra King was retired, but reinforcements have arrived posthaste.

In the first race under Puype, Running Flame took less than 2 1/2 minutes to triple his French earnings, winning Sunday’s $500,000 Hollywood Turf Cup for the 30-year-old trainer, owner Gary Biszantz and jockey Chris McCarron, who virtually owns the Hollywood Park fall stake.

McCarron, winning the Turf Cup for the seventh time, was able to squeeze Running Flame between horses on the inside in the stretch for a two-length victory over Marlin, the Hollywood Derby winner two weeks ago. Talloires, who went off the 11-10 favorite in the 10-horse field, finished third, beaten by three lengths.

Running Flame, who paid $25.60 to win, was clocked in 2:28 2/5 for 1 1/2 miles over a track listed as good. He earned $300,000, which according to Puype was more than Biszantz paid for the French-bred 4-year-old when the Rancho Santa Fe resident bought him last month. Running in mostly minor races in France, Running Flame had won three of 12 starts overseas.

Biszantz bred and raced Cobra King, one of the most promising contenders for the Kentucky Derby when he sustained a tendon injury in this year’s Florida Derby. Cobra King will stand at stud at Gainesway Farm in Kentucky next year.

“This is typical of the business,” Puype said. “For every up, there’s a down. One day you’re in, the next day you’re out.”

The Turf Cup is a tough race to win unless your name is McCarron. No other jockey has won more than one.

McCarron and Running Flame were 10th after a half-mile and eighth for six furlongs. Wings Bash, Marlin and Talloires were the pace-setters.

“It was like [Running Flame] had eyes for the hole that opened,” McCarron said. “He knew exactly where he was going. I wasn’t really concerned about the slow pace, because I knew they were walking and this horse runs that way. My only concern was finding some place to go. I was hoping [Marlin] would go out a little once we straightened out in the stretch, and he did. He shot right through the hole.”

McCarron has ridden 15 times in the Turf Cup. His first win in the stake came with John Henry, then an 8-year-old, in 1983. The others have been Alphabatim, Frankly Perfect, Miss Alleged, Bien Bien and Fraise. The last three were in succession, starting in 1991.

The soft going helped Running Flame and worked against Marlin, who prefers firm ground. “When I asked him turning for home,” said Marlin’s jockey, Corey Nakatani, “he dug in and bobbled a bit. He was running real spotty.”

Horse Racing Notes

Sixieme Sens, whose only stakes victory this year came on a soft track at Belmont Park, won again Sunday, taking the $111,000 Dahlia Handicap by a half-length over Grafin. Corey Nakatani rode Sixieme Sens for trainer Bobby Frankel, who said: “The conditions made us win today.” . . . Eddie Delahoussaye, who was to ride Windsharp in the Turf Cup and Constant Demand in the Futurity, was absent because of illness for the second straight day and his interim agent, Bill Barisoff, said the jockey will sit out the rest of the meet because of a viral infection.