Daytona races to a win in the Hollywood Derby

An Irish-bred 3-year-old horse named Daytona motored to the lead in the $500,000 Hollywood Derby on Sunday at Hollywood Park and never gave it up, holding off hard-charging Medici Code to win by half a length.

Even-money favorite Nobiz Like Shobiz never threatened and finished eighth.

Daytona, ridden by Mike Smith and trained by Dan Hendricks, is owned by a four-person syndicate put together by the 23-year-old son of jockey Alex Solis, Alex Jr.

The elder Solis, 43, was supposed to ride Patch of Blue in the 1 1/4 -mile Hollywood Derby on the turf, but the horse was scratched.

“Of course I would have had to try to win the race,” said Solis. But he was happy about how things turned out.

“It’s a great feeling, only in a different way,” he said.

Alex Jr. said his syndicate has had horses win other races, but none of this magnitude. The syndicate comprises Jeff Davenport, Tom Lenner, Jess Ravich and Thomas Murray.

They bought Daytona last spring in England for approximately $115,000 from Sheik Mohammad al-Maktoum, who had paid roughly $500,000 for him as a yearling. But he was difficult to handle until he was gelded.

Now, with Sunday’s win, he has earned $461,390, most of it since coming to the United States. He did not run as a 2-year-old and only raced three times in Europe.

The gelding won an allowance race at Del Mar in July and finished third in a division of the El Cajon there. He then cruised to as a 10-1 shot on the Oak Tree Derby at Santa Anita.

Precious Kitten won Sunday’s other major race, the $500,000 Matriarch, on the close of Hollywood Park’s three-day Turf Festival. The two big races helped attract a crowd of 7,207.

Precious Kitten is trained by Bobby Frankel, who had the Matriarch winner for a fourth straight year and a record eighth time overall. Frankel had been tied with Charlie Whittingham with seven Matriarch wins.

Precious Kitten was expected to go out fast and take the lead. But jockey Rafael Bejarano let 43-1 shot Live Life have the honors.

Precious Kitten, winning for the ninth time in 19 races, was never less than second in the six-horse field in the one-mile turf race for fillies and mares 3 years old and up and covered the distance in a record 1:33.63. The previous record for this stakes was 1:34.43, which was set by Heat Haze in 2003.

Wait a While, sent off as the even-money favorite, finished second, 1 1/4 lengths back. Lady of Venice was third and Live Life hung on for fourth.

Bejarano won for the fourth time since arriving at Hollywood Park on Wednesday from Kentucky. His hot pace will be slowed when he serves a three-day suspension beginning Friday. The penalty is for careless riding aboard Bullsbay in the sixth race Friday. Bullsbay was disqualified from second to ninth.

Garrett Gomez, who rode Wait a While for trainer Todd Pletcher, said of his mount: “Overall, her performance was good, but not her best.”

Gomez’s long weekend of travel and racing produced $479,325 in return for his owners.

Gomez, the leading thoroughbred rider in the country, raced at Hollywood Park on Friday and Sunday, Churchill Downs in Kentucky on Thursday and Aqueduct in New York on Saturday. He had 25 mounts in those four days, worth a total of $3,301,650 in purses. He won three races, was second five times and third four times.

Frankel was not at the track Sunday. Assistant trainer Humberto Ascanio said Precious Kitten’s next race will be at the Santa Anita winter meet that begins Dec. 26.

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Times staff writer Bill Dwyre contributed to this report.

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larry.stewart@latimes.com