Strong Finish Gives Valdivia a Good Start

Opening day at Hollywood Park began with a second, a third, then another third-place finish for Jose Valdivia Jr. with his first three mounts. In other words, shades of the recently completed Oak Tree meet at Santa Anita, where Valdivia, finishing 13th in the standings, won only five races while 31 of his mounts ran second or third.

But at Hollywood Park on Tuesday, help for Valdivia was on the way. In the seventh race, the $72,870 Bien Bien Stakes, he got another chance to ride Special Rate, one of his 15 second-place finishers at Santa Anita, and the 3-year-old colt caught Royal Place in the final stride, posting his first victory since breaking his maiden in February.

“At the eighth pole, my horse found another gear,” Valdivia said of Special Rate, who was two lengths back then. “This horse is very well bred, and he’s a real racehorse.”

Stung last year with the lowest average daily attendance -- 6,458 -- in the 22-year history of the fall meet, Hollywood Park opened this season on the Veterans’ Day holiday instead of the usual Wednesday. Tuesday’s crowd was 5,577, about 500 fewer than the turnout for last year’s Wednesday opener, when admission was free. At least Hollywood outdrew Aqueduct in New York, where 4,300 showed up in the rain on Tuesday.

Special Rate is trained by Bobby Frankel, whose goals are to win one more Grade I race for the year and surpass the $20-million mark in purses. At $17.8 million, Frankel has already broken the money record, but he needs one more Grade I to set a world record in that category. Last month Frankel won his 23rd Grade I, tying the mark set by Ireland’s Aidan O’Brien in 2001.

There are five Grade I races scheduled in the 30-day meet -- the Hollywood Turf Cup on Nov. 22, the Hollywood Derby and the Matriarch on Nov. 29, the Hollywood Futurity on Dec. 20 and the Hollywood Starlet on Dec. 21, closing day. Frankel plans to run Intercontinental and Betty’s Wish in the Matriarch, a race he has won four of the last seven years, and he could run Special Rate back in the Hollywood Derby, along with Urban King.

A fourth win in the Hollywood Derby would tie Frankel with the late Charlie Whittingham for most victories in the stake. Special Rate’s win Tuesday was Frankel’s 854th at Hollywood, which leaves him five short of that Whittingham record. Whittingham’s stakes record at the track is safe. He had 222 wins. Frankel is second with 121.

In the ungraded Bien Bien, Special Rate ended a four-race losing streak during which he was second twice and third once. Favored at 2-1, his time for the mile was 1:34 3/5. The distance for the Hollywood Derby, which used to be a 1 1/8-mile race, has been lengthened to 1 1/4 miles this year.

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Doug O’Neill, who led the Oak Tree meet and was No. 1 in the trainer standings at Hollywood Park last fall, opened the season with two wins. One of O’Neill’s winners, Pt’s Grey Eagle, was claimed by Craig Dollase for $62,500.

O’Neill’s Excessivepleasure, already the winner of derbies in New Mexico, Iowa and Indiana this year, will run in the $150,000 Oklahoma Derby at Remington Park on Sunday.

Today is a dark day, followed by the resumption of racing on Thursday.... Julie Krone, who is sitting out the first three days of the meet because of a suspension, will ride Banyubewi in Saturday’s $150,000 Long Island Handicap at Aqueduct before returning to Hollywood Park on Sunday.

Johar, who finished in a dead-heat victory with High Chaparral in the Breeders’ Cup Turf, is scheduled to run in the $4-million Japan Cup in Tokyo on Nov. 30. Islington, winner of the Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf, is also a probable. Johar could earn a $1.2 million bonus with a win.