Abby Girl Benefits From Recovery Time

When owner Stephan Herold and trainer Craig Dollase decided to skip the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies with Abby Girl, they did something not always done in thoroughbred racing.

They thought about what was best for the horse.

Second to then-unbeaten Chilukki in the Oak Leaf Stakes last month at Santa Anita, Abby Girl, a 2-year-old daughter of Meadowlake, was knocked out by the effort, according to Dollase.

Still, more than a few owners and trainers might have been tempted to ship to Florida anyway, anxious to try a filly who had won two of three and had been second in a Grade I in her first try around two turns.

Herold and Dollase chose to give Abby Girl some time to recover and now she’s back today at Hollywood Park in the $100,000 Moccasin Stakes.

In what is a prep for next month’s $200,000 Hollywood Starlet, she is the 6-5 favorite against five others in the seven-furlong race.

Nineteen days without a workout after the Oak Leaf, Abby Girl has come back with three drills at Hollywood Park, two of them bullets, including a 47 3/5 half-mile breeze three days ago.

“She didn’t come out of that last race well and she lost some weight,” said Dollase, who won the 1998 Breeders’ Cup Sprint with Reraise. “[The Oak Leaf] was a very big effort for her and if we were going to go to the Breeders’ Cup we wanted everything to be perfect.

“She’s rebounded well and she worked real well with [regular rider] Corey [Nakatani] the other morning.”

Before the Oak Leaf, Abby Girl, who was purchased as a yearling for $75,000 last year at Saratoga, won a maiden race by four lengths on the Hollywood Park turf course, then won an allowance contest at Del Mar by eight.

The 7-5 second choice in the Moccasin is Classic Olympio, who has won two of four for owner Verne Winchell’s VHW Stables and trainer Ron McAnally.

Second in her first two starts at Del Mar, Classic Olympio beat maidens by seven lengths at Santa Anita on Sept. 29, then, three weeks later, won the Anoakia Stakes as the 3-5 favorite.

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Self Feeder, a 10-1 shot, captured the $73,900 Steinlen Handicap, beating 14-1 shot Mr Lightfoot by half a length in 1:40 4/5 for the 1 1/16 miles on turf. Eddie Delahoussaye rode the winner for owners Ward Williford and Richard Strauss and trainer Pat Gallagher.

The victory was the sixth in 17 starts for the 5-year-old son of Lycius, who had to survive a foul claim by Pat Valenzuela, the rider of Mr Lightfoot.

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Jockey Laffit Pincay Jr.’s streak of consecutive days with a winner ended at eight Saturday when he blanked with his three mounts--two other mounts were scratched off the program--and he is still 19 shy of Bill Shoemaker’s all-time record of 8,833 victories. . . . William Calhoun “Cal” Partee Sr., owner of the 1992 Kentucky Derby winner Lil E. Tee, died Friday in Magnolia, Ark., after a long illness. He was 89. . . . There is a Pick Six carry-over for today of more than $122,000.