‘Paradise Pays Off With New Trainer

Taste Of Paradise, a horse who had had four previous trainers, made his debut for Gary Mandella at Hollywood Park on Sunday and won the $100,000 Vernon O. Underwood Stakes as the longest shot on the board.

Ridden by Jose Valdivia Jr., Taste Of Paradise beat Watchem Smokey, last year’s Underwood winner, by a nose and paid $54.80. My Master finished third, and Kela, the second-place finisher in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint, ran fourth as the 3-2 favorite.

Taste Of Paradise, owned by David Bloom, was sent to Mandella in September after running four times this year for Molly Pearson. The 5-year-old son of Conquistador Cielo has also been trained by John Sadler and Jay Robbins in California, and Michael Stidham was the trainer of record when the horse finished fifth, well back of the victorious Kela, in this year’s Texas Mile at Lone Star Park.

“I think the important thing this time is that he was fresh,” Mandella said. “I don’t think he would win every time I ran him six furlongs, but with [more than three months] between races, he had gotten really sharp.”

Taste Of Paradise’s time, on a rainy, raw day over a track listed as wet-fast, was 1:08.04, which set a stakes record previously held by Tower Full, who ran 1:08.17 in 1997.

Although Taste Of Paradise enjoyed the going, Kela labored. “As bad as the track was, he just couldn’t handle it,” said Corey Nakatani, who rode the favorite.

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Dynever, who was third after a mile in the Breeders’ Cup Classic before finishing eighth, will ship in from Florida to run in Saturday’s $100,000 Native Diver Handicap, trainer Christophe Clement said. Dynever, who has earned $1.3 million, is an Eastern-based horse who has never run at Hollywood Park, but his last win was in the San Bernardino Handicap at Santa Anita on April 3.