Hollywood Gold Cup : Watchword for Today’s Race Is Inconsistency

After Blushing John came away from the Pimlico Special with a two-length victory six weeks ago, members of his camp had every right to think that they were living in the best of two worlds.

It appeared as though owner Allen Paulson and his trainer, Dick Lundy, had a 4-year-old colt who was at home on both dirt and grass. Blushing John had won $420,000 on dirt in the Special, beating the best top-to-bottom field of older horses this year. Lundy was talking about the next long-range goal, the Arlington Million at the end of summer, which would entail returning the European-tested horse to grass.

In between, however, Blushing John has tasted defeat in California, and now his credentials on dirt are in need of reinforcing. That opportunity comes today, when Lundy’s colt faces six opponents in the 50th Hollywood Gold Cup.

If the $500,000 race isn’t won by Charlie Whittingham, who will saddle three starters in his bid for a ninth Gold Cup victory, it is likely to be won by a member of his alumni association. Lundy worked six years under Whittingham before striking out on his own in 1976, and Neil Drysdale, another former Whittingham aide, is running Sabona, the rickety, independent 7-year-old who won the Californian three weeks ago and who will try to spring another upset in the 1 1/4-mile stake that highlights Hollywood Park’s season.

One of the first times Whittingham ran 1-2-3 in a stake came in 1973, when Kennedy Road gave him his third Gold Cup and stablemates Quack and Cougar II were the immediate pursuers. Whittingham has swept the first three places in stakes 10 times and he will have a chance for No. 11 today with Nasr El Arab, Lively One and Payant.

Besides the Whittingham entry, Blushing John and Sabona, the other entrants are Henbane and Wait Till Monday. Those two appear to have no business in the race, but then Sabona also seemed to be a gate crasher in the 1 1/8-mile Californian, until he beat Blushing John, Lively One and Payant in a $32.20 upset.

In the Californian, Blushing John passed the speedy Ruhlmann at the top of the stretch, appearing to make the same kind of winning move that enabled him to beat Proper Reality at Pimlico. But Sabona, who moved closer to the leaders on the far turn, passed both of them to finish 1 1/4 lengths ahead of Blushing John.

Sabona carried nine pounds less than Blushing John in the Californian, which Lundy thought might have made a difference, and the two rivals will be only six pounds apart today, with Blushing John at 122. Nasr El Arab, the high weight at 123, will try to become only the third top weight--after two other Whittingham horses, Perrault in 1982 and Ferdinand in 1987--to win the Gold Cup this decade.

Rather than weight, Blushing John’s defeat last time might be more attributable to a group of horses in the division who seem incapable of winning two straight races when they face the leading competition. Most of them lose more races than they win, and the best is generally considered to be Seeking the Gold, who hasn’t won a stake this year. Typically, Proper Reality, who beat Seeking the Gold in the Metropolitan Handicap, was beaten Saturday in the Hawthorne Gold Cup by Cryptoclearance, who was unable to beat Blushing John at Pimlico.

One Las Vegas oddsmaker has made Seeking the Gold a lukewarm 5-1 favorite to win the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Gulfstream Park on Nov. 4, with Easy Goer and Sunday Silence the co-second choices at 6-1. Only two 3-year-olds, Conquistador Cielo and Spend a Buck, have been voted horse of the year in the 1980s. But Sunday Silence, the Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner, and Easy Goer, winner of the Belmont, are the favorites for the title.

Blushing John, 8-1 in the Breeders’ Cup’s future book, is the first important horse for Lundy since the 41-year-old trainer began running the American division of Paulson’s international racing stable last November.

A recommendation from Whittingham in 1982 helped send Lundy East to work for Virginia Kraft Payson before he hooked up with Paulson. Lundy’s first major winner was Carr de Naskra, who won the Travers in 1984, and last year he won important races with Jade Hunter and Milesius, who was fifth in the Breeders’ Cup Turf.

“Dick was a good horseman before he came to work for me,” Whittingham said. “He had had some experience with show horses, and he just went from there.”

Lundy says that his six years with Whittingham amounted to a complete education. “A lot of it was bound to rub off,” Lundy said. “Around Charlie, you learned everything, including how to work with the racing secretary’s office, which is an important part of a trainer’s job.”

When Whittingham was in New York, unsuccessfully attempting to win the Triple Crown with Sunday Silence, he cashed in a favor, stabling his colt at Lundy’s Belmont Park barn. Now Lundy has returned to the scene of his beginnings. He was around when Whittingham won the Gold Cup with Exceller in 1978, so he knows the feeling, even if it’s secondhand.

Horse Racing Notes

It was rumored during the weekend that Hollywood Park had finally sold Los Alamitos, its financial albatross, but G. Michael Finnigan, a track vice president, said that no deal has been made. At least four groups are interested, and one of them, headed by Dee Hubbard, reportedly has increased its offer from $60 million to $68 million. A drawback for some of the groups is that buying the track almost certainly means rebuilding the golf course on the Los Alamitos property, in order to satisfy the citizens of Cypress, where the track is located. . . . Six of the nine Gold Cups this decade have been split by jockeys Laffit Pincay and Eddie Delahoussaye. Pincay, who has won seven Gold Cups overall, could tie Bill Shoemaker’s record if Payant wins today. Delahoussaye doesn’t have a mount. . . . Pincay is locked in a four-way battle with Pat Valenzuela, Pat Day and Gary Stevens for national riding honors. According to latest Daily Racing Form figures, Pincay’s horses have won $5.7 million this year, and the other three are also over the $5-million mark. Day will ride Blushing John and Valenzuela will be aboard Nasr El Arab. . . . If Sabona wins today, he would become the ninth horse to score a Californian-Gold Cup double. Cutlass Reality won both races last year.