Singletary Expected at Hollywood Park

Hollywood Park sort of tiptoes into its fall season today: There’s not even a stakes race on the opening card.

It’s the reverse of the Oak Tree meet at Santa Anita, where the racing department has to front-load the stakes schedule to give horses opportunities to prep for the Breeders’ Cup.

At Hollywood, the heavy-duty races are all after the meet is well underway. The first graded race is scheduled on the 14th day of the 36-day season, but eventually the track will get around to running six Grade I stakes, two of them worth $500,000.

One Grade I, the Citation Handicap on Nov. 27, was a Grade II before getting a promotion from the national graded stakes committee -- just in time for Singletary to run in it.

That appearance by Singletary will be one of the highlights of the meet. The 4-year-old colt was the surprise winner, at 16-1, of the Breeders’ Cup Mile last Saturday at Lone Star Park.

Singletary was a surprise, that is, to everyone except the 13-member syndicate that owns him. One of the partners bet him at 30-1 in Las Vegas, in the Breeders’ Cup future book. Another of the owners got him at 22-1.

Until then, Singletary had run only once since the end of May, finishing third but beaten by only a head, in the Oak Tree Mile at Santa Anita on Oct. 9.

“The owners let me give him the summer off,” said Don Chatlos Jr., who trains Singletary and had never started a horse in the Breeders’ Cup. “The layoff was by design. I knew a lot about this horse after last year. We gave him time off then, and he came back and ran huge.

“I knew then that one race was enough for him to run against top-class competition in a second start. The beginning of this year, the same thing.”

Running in February at Santa Anita off a five-month layoff, Singletary won a minor stake at a mile on grass.

“It was a glorified allowance race but he ran big,” Chatlos said.

Although Chatlos trains his horses at Hollywood Park, only two of Singletary’s 16 races have been there. He finished third in the Will Rogers last year and ran second in the Bill Shoemaker Mile this year.

The Citation is one of four Grade I grass races at Hollywood. The track had hoped to lure Six Perfections, a late nominee for the $500,000 Matriarch on Nov. 28, but after the Breeders’ Cup, Pascal Bary, trainer of the filly, said that she would be retired, to be bred in Kentucky to Storm Cat early next year. Six Perfections won the Breeders’ Cup Mile last year but had traffic trouble at Lone Star and finished third, two lengths behind Singletary.

The Hollywood meet’s last two Grade I stakes, the Hollywood Futurity on Dec. 18 and the Hollywood Starlet on Dec. 19, are on dirt. The Futurity could help determine the Eclipse Award winner for best 2-year-old male, should Declan’s Moon run. A Futurity winner hasn’t won the division title since Roving Boy in 1982. Declan’s Moon won the Del Mar Futurity but didn’t run in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile.

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Of the eight Breeders’ Cup winners, only Speightstown is being retired.... The stud fee on Awesome Again will jump from $75,000 to $125,000 next year. Awesome Again, winner of the Breeders’ Cup Classic in 1998, sired Ghostzapper, winner of last Saturday’s Classic, and Wilko, who won the Juvenile at Lone Star.... Before a rain-soaked crowd of about 98,000, Makybe Diva became the first mare in the 144-year history of the Melbourne Cup, Australia’s most famous race, to win it twice. She beat Vinnie Roe, an Irish horse, by a length.

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Hollywood Park Facts

Significant races during Hollywood Park’s 36-day meet (through Dec. 20):

* $150,000 Hollywood Turf Express (Nov. 26)

* $100,000 Miesque Stakes (Nov. 26)

* $100,000 Generous Stakes (Nov. 27)

* $400,000 Citation Handicap (Nov. 27)

* $500,000 Hollywood Derby (Nov. 28)

* $500,000 Matriarch (Nov. 28)

* $250,000 Hollywood Turf Cup (Dec. 4)

* $200,000 Hollywood Futurity (Dec. 18)

* $200,000 Hollywood Starlet (Dec. 19)

Note: Post time is 12:30 p.m., except 11 a.m. on Nov. 25 and 7 p.m. on Nov. 5 and Nov. 12