Toga Toga Toga Able to Turn It On Again

Keep Toga Toga Toga around one turn and she is unbeatable these days.

The 5-year-old Saratoga Six mare made it six consecutive victories in sprints with a one-length victory over 12-1 shot Our Summer Bid in the $108,400 A Gleam Handicap on Saturday at Hollywood Park.

In giving jockey Gary Stevens his sixth victory in the Grade II stakes and his second of three wins on the day, the 17-10 favorite rallied on the outside to score in 1:22 3/5 for the seven furlongs.

Trained by Eduardo Inda for owner Stanley Bell, Toga Toga Toga hasn’t lost a sprint race since finishing second to Beaus And Belles in an allowance race at Del Mar last Sept. 4.

“She’s something else,” Stevens said. “She’s so nice to ride and so professional. She leaves [the gate] running, but you just snug her up a little bit to give her some confidence, then when you hit the quarter pole, she just rebreaks.”

Cat’s Cradle, the 9-5 second choice, was eased with jockey Alex Solis saying she took a bad step approaching the stretch.

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Earlier on the card, jockey Laffit Pincay Jr. won for the first time since he was injured a month earlier at Santa Anita when directing 17-1 shot Dayjob to victory in the fifth race.

After finishing fourth and sixth with his two mounts Friday night, Pincay was fourth with Seckar Vale in Saturday’s third, then took Dayjob gate-to-wire, winning by three-quarters of a length in 1:43 2/5 for the 1 1/16 miles. Pincay, who is the second winningest jockey in history behind Bill Shoemaker, now has 8,523 victories.

Finishing fifth in the field of six was heavily favored Steel Ruhlr, who was running for the first time since finishing fourth at 63-1 in the Santa Anita Derby three weeks earlier. Now trained by his owner, Ed Delaplane, the gray son of Ruhlmann has lost 15 of 16.

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Hollywood Park’s opening night, which attracted 32,581 fans, wasn’t without glitches.

The first race was delayed seven minutes because of a problem with the starting gate and the payoff for the Pick All, which requires a bettor to pick a horse that finishes first or second in each of the day’s races, was posted incorrectly after the ninth race.

On the track’s large television screen in the infield, it was originally posted that tickets with six of nine correct in the Pick All were each good for nearly $1,700. This immediately signaled something was wrong because on most nine-race cards, tickets must have nine or eight winners to be worth anything.

According to a Hollywood Park spokesman, the problem occurred because, for reasons left unexplained, the tote system identified only Pick All tickets that had race winners on them, not those that had either the first or second-place finisher. Given that the Pick All, in its current format, has been on the local wagering menu since 1992, this was an error difficult to fathom.

The mistake was rectified and the correct payoff was $7,263.60 for the three tickets that had nine.

Horse Racing Notes

The on-track attendance was up slightly over last year’s opening, when the crowd was 32,432. . . . Dayjob was a controversial $50,000 claim by trainer Barry Abrams on April 11. Ron Gomez, the gelding’s previous owner, thought the claim should have been voided because he said there was a gap between the letters “y” and “j” in the 3-year-old’s name on the claim slip and that would constitute a misspelling. According to the California Horse Racing Board’s rule book, a misspelling would void a claim. The Santa Anita stewards already ruled the claim valid, but Gomez appealed that decision and a one-hour hearing was held Friday morning at Santa Anita before a CHRB-appointed referee. The referee will later offer his opinion to the CHRB and a decision will be made in several weeks.