Sweet Catomine Won’t Fill Starlet’s Role

Fleetingly, the owners and trainer of Sweet Catomine considered running in the Hollywood Starlet after she won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies.

But Marty and Pam Wygod, who bred and race Sweet Catomine, and trainer Julio Canani already have the divisional Eclipse award locked up, so there’s no need to run in Sunday’s Hollywood Park race. Sweet Catomine’s next start is expected to be in the Santa Ysabel Stakes on Jan. 9 at Santa Anita, where she won the Oak Leaf in her October prep for the Breeders’ Cup.

The Starlet, a $380,000 race, has drawn seven horses, including Sharp Lisa, who ran sixth in the Breeders’ Cup, and Splendid Blended, who finished second, four lengths behind Sweet Catomine, in the Oak Leaf.

Sharp Lisa, who has had a breather since the Breeders’ Cup, had three tough races to begin her career. She broke her maiden by 6 1/2 lengths at Calder in September, then after an ownership change ran second for Hollywood Park trainer Doug O’Neill in the Alcibiades at Keeneland. The Starlet will be Sharp Lisa’s fourth start at a fourth different track.

After the Oak Leaf, Splendid Blended ran 1 1/16 miles, the Starlet distance, and won a Hollywood allowance race by 3 1/4 lengths Nov. 14.

This is the Starlet field, in post-position order: Northern Mischief, Charming Colleen, Sharp Lisa, Kenza, Memorette, No Bull Baby and Splendid Blended.

The Starlet will be run on the next-to-last day of the Hollywood Park season. The meet ends Monday, with the running of the Dahlia Handicap, and then there will be a break before Santa Anita opens Dec. 26.

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Ron Anderson, the agent for Jerry Bailey, told Television Games Network (TVG) on Friday that Kieren Fallon, the leading jockey in England for six of the last eight years, will ride regularly at the Gulfstream Park meet that starts in January. Anderson said that he would book mounts for Fallon and Bailey, who has won the Eclipse award, emblematic of the best jockey in North America, for the last four years and seven times overall.

Fallon has been successful in scattered appearances in the U.S. this year. He won the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf with Ouija Board at Lone Star in October, and last month at Churchill Downs he won two races.

Fallon, 39, won the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf with Islington at Santa Anita last year. He has been in hot water with English racing authorities this year. In March, he lost a race by a nose after leading by 10 lengths in the stretch. In September, he was arrested and released after being linked to alleged betting irregularities. No charges were filed, and this week the English Jockey Club, citing a lack of evidence, said that its investigation had ended.

“Fallon is a maverick,” English columnist Clare Balding once wrote in the Observer. “He is a willful individual with a temper and strong tendency to get involved with the ‘wrong’ people. He has been treated for alcohol problems, is a reluctant communicator and has an uncanny knack of landing himself in trouble. He is also an inspired jockey.... He is ice-cool under pressure and can out-psyche his rivals with the odd, sparingly worded comment.”