Sadler ends meeting with a stakes win

Trainer John Sadler fittingly had the winner of the Grade II, $150,000 Sunset Handicap as the curtain came down on Hollywood Park’s 60-day spring-summer meet Sunday.

Warning Zone’s mild upset in the feature, in which he beat 6-5 favorite Cedar Mountain by a length, capped a banner meet for Sadler.

Sadler, who turns 52 on July 30, won the meet’s training title with 30 winners, including a meet-high seven in stakes races.

“I’ve been here a lot of years as a blue-collar, consistent-type trainer,” Sadler said. “Now we’re going up a level.”

He said the 1 1/2 -mile distance of the Sunset on turf suited Warning Zone well. Earlier in the week, he had issued a warning about Warning Zone, who had not won in his previous seven starts.

“He’s better the farther he goes,” Sadler said of the 4-year-old colt who had finished fifth at 1 1/4 miles in the Charles Whittingham Memorial Handicap on the Hollywood Park turf June 7.

That proved true Sunday, and Sadler indicated the Del Mar Handicap, a 1 3/8 -mile race on turf Aug. 23, might be next.

Warning Zone now has four wins in 15 starts but hadn’t won since November 2007. With his victory Sunday, he earned $97,200.

Warning Zone, ridden by Mike Smith, covered the 1 1/2 miles in 2:26.95 and paid $10.80, $4 and $3.20 as the 4-1 second choice. Cedar Mountain returned $2.80 and $2.40, and Chilean-bred Porfido finished third and paid $3.60 to show.

Cedar Mountain was ridden by Rafael Bejarano, who ran away with the Hollywood Park jockey title. He had 56 wins with 285 mounts. Runner-up Joel Rosario had 45 with 319.

Sadler’s 30 wins came with 143 starts. Doug O’Neill finished second with 23 wins in 160 starts, and Jeff Mullins was next with 20 in 113 starts.

The weekend of the June 28 Hollywood Gold Cup was big for Sadler. He didn’t have an entry in the Inglewood track’s signature event but won three stakes that day and then won the Grade II Beverly Hills Handicap the next day with Black Mamba.

“Obviously that weekend was a highlight,” Sadler said.

This could be the next-to-last spring-summer meet at Hollywood Park. Jack Liebau, Hollywood Park president, recently told the California Horse Racing Board that the track is committed to racing through next year’s meet and that racing could possibly continue after that, but it wasn’t a certainty.

The Bay Meadows Land Co., which owns the track, eventually plans to tear it down and develop the property with condominiums, apartments and businesses.

Sunday’s on-track attendance was 7,633. The meet’s daily average was 6,063, down from last year’s average of 6,443.

The average on-track daily handle of more than $1.5 million was 9.7% below last year’s average of nearly $1.7 million.

“The tracks across the country have struggled to maintain their 2007 averages,” Liebau said. “I think we did as well as we could have hoped in these tough economic times.”

There were eight racing fatalities this meet, compared with four last year. But there were only two fatalities during morning training, compared with four last year.

Advance deposit wagering continued to grow, with a daily average of $2.1 million -- up 14.6% from 2007.

------

The Del Mar summer meet opens Wednesday, but there still is no agreement that would allow all advanced deposit wagering providers in California to take bets.

An eight-month experiment that opened up all such online wagering ended with the close of the Hollywood Park meet.

The Del Mar Thoroughbred Club has asked that the experiment extend at least through its 43-day meet that ends Sept. 3, but TVG, which currently has an exclusive agreement, has not agreed to waive that agreement.

Following negotiations late last year involving the Thoroughbred Owners of California and the state’s major thoroughbred tracks, XpressBet, TwinSpires and YouBet were able to take bets, along with TVG.

--

larry.stewart@latimes.com