Weekend Racing at Hollywood Park : English Filly Could Give Palma First Big Win

Hector Palma has never trained the winner of a major race, but if grass is the same as dirt, his chances of reaching that milestone are favorable Sunday in the $150,000 Hollywood Oaks.

Pen Bal Lady, an English-bred filly whose first 10 career starts have been on grass, will represent Palma in the Oaks, which has drawn five other 3-year-olds well-accustomed to stakes competition.

Also in the Hollywood Park field for the 1 1/8-mile dirt race are Ransomed Captive, Sacahuista and Very Subtle, who ran 1-2-3 in the Princess Stakes on June 20; Perchance To Dream, who was fifth in the Princess; and Super Cook, who with Sacahuista gives trainer Wayne Lukas two starters.

With all the fillies carrying 121 pounds, they will line up this way, starting on the inside:

Super Cook, with Pat Valenzuela riding; Very Subtle, Chris McCarron; Sacahuista, Gary Stevens; Ransomed Captive, Laffit Pincay; Pen Bal Lady, Eddie Delahoussaye; and Perchance To Dream, Ray Sibille.

There are some rider switches. Delahoussaye is sticking with Pen Bal Lady, so Pincay takes over on Ransomed Captive. McCarron replaces Bill Shoemaker on Very Subtle, who, in the opinion of her handlers, might have won the Princess except for an unnecessary wide trip.

“I hate to keep making excuses for her, but I think she had another one in that last race,” said Mel Stute, who trains Very Subtle. “Before that, she stumbled coming out of the gate in the Kentucky Oaks, and at Santa Anita (in the Las Virgenes) she propped (refused to run) in the stretch when she had the race won.”

Pen Bal Lady hasn’t needed any excuses in her two American starts, since she has won both.

Purchased privately by Palma at Newmarket for $60,000, Pen Bal Lady won the 1-mile Senorita at Hollywood Park on April 25 and then won the 1 1/16-mile Honeymoon Handicap on May 17.

In England, Pen Bal Lady won three of seven starts and had a second and two thirds.

“She’s done all of her training on dirt here because the turf course hasn’t been available,” Palma said. “But that’s not the same as running on dirt, so we’ll just have to wait and see.”

One of the problems turf horses sometimes have when switching to the main track is not being able to adjust to dirt hitting them in the face. Pen Bal Lady has a come-from-behind style, which indicates that she will be behind horses at the start of the Oaks.

Palma will probably return Pen Bal Lady to grass when his stable leaves Hollywood Park, since the Del Mar Oaks on Aug. 30 is a turf race. Pen Bal Lady is eligible, however, for the Breeders’ Cup races--seven stakes worth $10 million at Hollywood Park on Nov. 21--and a good performance by the filly Sunday would give the trainer another option.

Palma, who turned 50 on the Fourth of July, has been a head trainer since 1971. The first horse he ever started, Ten Grand, won at Hollywood Park.

Palma has gone on to win more than 175 races at Hollywood, most of them in the claiming ranks, but occasionally he has had some notable stakes winners: As de Corps won the Golden Gate Handicap in 1979, and Fatih won the stake in 1985, the same year he won the Arcadia Handicap at Santa Anita.

The Golden Gate and the Arcadia are $100,000 races, but they are not as prestigious as the Hollywood Oaks. A good-as-grass performance by the English filly and it’s a career breakthrough for the Mexican-born trainer.

Horse Racing Notes

Trainer Wayne Lukas has three 2-year-old fillies--Blue Jean Baby, O’Dawn and Over All--entered in today’s Landaluce Stakes. Lukas has won the race three times, once in 1982 with the filly it was named for. That was the last year the race was called the Hollywood Lassie. . . . Tiffany Lass, last year’s champion 3-year-old filly, has won only one of three starts this year and her retirement is being considered. . . . Lost Code, the hottest 3-year-old colt in the country with six straight wins, runs today in the $150,000 Arlington Classic. Others in the eight-horse field are Proudest Duke, Fast Forward and Avies Copy . . . Trainer Mel Stute said that Ben Rochelle, one of the owners of Snow Chief, has given him a lifetime breeding right to the colt, who was recently retired to stud. . . . Besides Very Subtle in the Hollywood Oaks, Stute will send out Tomorrow’s Child in the Landaluce. Tomorrow’s Child made her debut just last Saturday, winning by eight lengths. “It might be rushing her back, but there aren’t a lot of spots around for 2-year-olds,” Stute said.