Weekend Racing at Hollywood Park : ‘Silence’s Belmont Looking Better

Looking back, Charlie Whittingham said Friday that Sunday Silence’s eight-length defeat in the Belmont Stakes wasn’t as bad as it seemed.

Looking ahead, the trainer outlined a schedule of three races that would make the 3-year-old colt’s owners about $2 million richer if he swept them.

Sunday Silence, winner of the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness, was back in Whittingham’s barn at Hollywood Park two days after the Belmont, and figures to run one race here--the Swaps on July 23--before hitting the road again.

The purse for the Swaps will be doubled, to $400,000, if the winner of a Triple Crown race runs. After that, Whittingham has his eye on the $1-million Molson Export Stakes Sept. 10 at Woodbine, near Toronto, followed by the Super Derby Sept. 24 at Louisiana Downs, where the purse will be doubled, to $2 million, if both Sunday Silence and Belmont winner Easy Goer show up.

All three of the races on Sunday Silence’s schedule are at 1 1/4 miles, the same distance as the Kentucky Derby.

After the 1 1/2-mile Belmont, Whittingham’s assessment was that the longer distance favored Easy Goer, but now he’s not blaming the extra quarter of a mile.

“After looking at the winner’s time, I think that my horse didn’t run too bad,” Whittingham said. “You look at the time my horse probably ran in, and you see that it was really a real good time. It was faster than a lot of the winners of the Belmont have run, including Citation.”

Easy Goer won the Belmont in 2:26, second-fastest time in the history of the race and two seconds slower than Secretariat when he set a world record for the distance while sweeping the Triple Crown in 1973. A length is a fifth of a second, which means that Sunday Silence’s time in the Belmont was about 2:27 3/5. Of the 10 Triple Crown champions who ran a 1 1/2-mile Belmont, only Secretariat and Affirmed ran faster than Sunday Silence’s theoretical time.

“Easy Goer ran a big race,” Whittingham said. “As the day went on--despite all the rain that week and the night before--the track was made faster and faster for him. By the time they ran the Belmont, the track was real fast. My horse has tender feet, and he probably didn’t like the track that much, while it was home for the other horse and he loved it.”

Despite the Triple Crown setback, the 76-year-old Whittingham is having perhaps his best year. His horses have already won 20 stakes--one out of about every three they’ve run in--and Whittingham’s purses total $6.2 million, which is more than the barn banked all last year.

Whittingham now is taking aim at the two major grass races coming up in the next four days at Hollywood Park--the $150,000 Beverly Hills Handicap for fillies and mares on Sunday and the $300,000 American Handicap on Tuesday, the Fourth of July.

Six horses were entered for the 1 1/8-mile Beverly Hills, half of them trained by Whittingham, who will try to win the stake for the second straight year with Fitzwilliam Place. Whittingham’s other starters are Claire Marine and Galunpe. They will be opposed by Invited Guest, Maria Jesse and No Review. Fitzwilliam Place is the high weight at 121 pounds.

In the 1 1/8-mile American, Whittingham’s only starter is Pasakos. Skip Out Front and Steinlen, who ran 1-2 in the stake a year ago, are expected to be part of a small field.

Horse Racing Notes

Horsemen have approved a request by Hollywood Park to run races at night on July 21, when the track will give its farewell salute to the retiring Bill Shoemaker. The $250,000 Sunset Handicap, which was supposed to be run on closing day, July 24, has been switched to that night. Post time for the first race will be 7 p.m. . . . Hollywood Park will be closed next Wednesday, then will run five straight days before being dark on Tuesday, July 11.

Other stakes this weekend are the $100,000 Valkyr Handicap today and the $150,000 Silver Screen Handicap on Monday. Silent Arrival, who won the Valkyr last year, is running today while in foal to Snow Chief, who was bred to her about two months ago. . . . Trainer Julio Canani, unhappy with the weights, said he wouldn’t run Bruho in the Silver Screen. Bruho, second to Music Merci in the Del Mar Futurity last year, was assigned 117 pounds, three less than Endow, who is expected to be the starting high weight.