Hollywood Ends With Big Payoff

All the reasons not to bet Grammarian in the $250,000 Sunset Handicap didn’t matter. On the wire Sunday at Hollywood Park, the 4-year-old gelding withstood a horde of pursuers, survived a stewards’ inquiry and paid $60, the biggest win payoff in the 61 editions of the stake.

This was light years from Kentucky Downs, an obscure track once known as the Dueling Grounds that runs only seven days a year. On one of those days in September of last year, Grammarian ran for the first time, beat maidens and gave his young trainer, Kellyn Gorder, the first win of his career. Grammarian was a well-kept secret even then. His win mutuel was $111.40.

Grammarian came back lame from that win, suffering a hock injury, and going into the Sunset he had run only twice more, finishing second and fourth this year at Churchill Downs. The 1 1/2-mile Sunset, the closing feature at the 65-day Hollywood meet, hardly looked like the logical spot for a horse that had never run farther than 1 1/16 miles.

Grammarian found his way to Hollywood Park because his owner, Lindsey Williams, is a dreamer. The Australian-born Williams, a Long Beach resident and retired Mattel executive, has long dreamed of winning the Melbourne Cup, run every November, and to make Grammarian eligible the horse had to win or finish second in a graded race in the U.S.

Ridden by Brice Blanc, who had won only five races at the meet, Grammarian overtook the pace-setting Slew The Red heading into the stretch. Under Blanc’s left-handed whipping, Grammarian drifted toward the center of the track as the other horses tried to run him down. At the end, with Continental Red second and favored Lord Flasheart third, the first three were separated by a couple of heads, and it was a half-length back to Kim Loves Bucky in fourth. Gary Stevens, riding the fifth-place finisher, Adminniestrator, was forced to steady his horse in the drive.

“There was no question,” said Pete Pedersen, one of the three stewards, “that [Grammarian] drifted out in the final strides--[Adminniestrator] steadied momentarily--and in our opinion it did not cost him a position. As far as the winning jockey’s responsibility, he will review the films with the stewards Wednesday.”

Adminniestrator was beaten by about two lengths.

“It’s up to the stewards,” Stevens said. “It doesn’t matter what I say.”

One of the reasons Williams hired Blanc to ride Grammarian was the stakes success the French-born jockey had had with Happyanunoit, the filly that raced for John Amerman, once Williams’ boss at Mattel. Also, Blanc rides light, and was able to ride within two pounds of the 110 that Grammarian was assigned.

“My horse is a little green,” Blanc said, “and when I hit him left-handed, he drifted more with me that I expected him to. I don’t think I bothered anybody, because I didn’t see anybody coming to me, and never heard anybody scream. I should have corrected him a little more, but he’s a big, long-striding horse, and I was afraid if I really tried to correct him, it would break my momentum.”

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The lone winning ticket on the pick six, bought at Connecticut Off-Track Betting, was worth $928,127.40, a Hollywood Park record. The old record was $774,014, on June 27, 1997.... Telephone betting, which began in California during the Santa Anita meet, seemed to account for an on-track drop in betting at Hollywood Park, even though attendance was up almost 9%. Overall handle rose 3.5%, while on-track betting was down 4.7%. Betting via phone and Internet averaged about $350,000 a day, and peaked on Hollywood Gold Cup day, when $693,505 was bet.

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Pat Valenzuela, riding four winners, led the standings with 74 victories, wrapping up his first meet title in Southern California since 1991.... Bobby Frankel led the trainers with 23 victories, eight of them in stakes.... Black Ruby, the 10-year-old mule, won her eighth in a row and 58th in 76 starts by beating Taz by 1 3/4 lengths in a $10,000 race at the Solano County Fair in Vallejo.... Summer Colony beat Your Out by a neck in the $600,000 Delaware Handicap at Delaware Park, and Mananan McLir, trained by Wally Dollase, won the $225,000 American Derby at Arlington Park.... War Emblem, 124 pounds, and Came Home, 122, are the high weights for the $1-million Haskell Handicap at Monmouth Park on Aug. 4.... Del Mar’s 43-day meet starts Wednesday.