HORSE RACING : Rhythm Still Has Plenty to Prove

Although Rhythm won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile last year and was voted the champion 2-year-old colt by the Eclipse Awards electorate, he has more to prove than some of the horses that finished behind him in both the race and ballot box.

Rhythm was the shakiest of Eclipse winners, not polling the most total votes but finishing No. 1 in a bloc-voting system that was barely able to separate him from his other rivals, Grand Canyon and Summer Squall.

Rhythm’s only stakes victory came in the Breeders’ Cup, his fifth and final start as a 2-year-old. Grand Canyon, second by two lengths in the Breeders’ Cup, wound up with stakes wins at Santa Anita, Churchill Downs and Hollywood Park and outpolled Rhythm and undefeated Summer Squall, the winner of four stakes who missed the Breeders’ race because of injury.

“Wayne, you wuz robbed,” Don Clippinger wrote recently in the The Thoroughbred Record, referring to Wayne Lukas, trainer of Grand Canyon.

Rhythm is trained by Shug McGaughey, who last year at this time had another 2-year-old champion, Easy Goer, in his barn. That’s the extent of the similarity, because in Easy Goer, McGaughey knew he had an exceptional colt, who had the misfortune to be foaled in the same year as Sunday Silence. The Eastern press raved about Easy Goer before he got to the Kentucky Derby, but the projections for Rhythm, both from turf writers and the trainer, are considerably more circumspect.

Others are also apprehensive. For Rhythm’s debut as a 3-year-old, in the seven-furlong Hutcheson Stakes on Saturday at Gulfstream Park, the track linemaker has installed him as a mild 5-2 favorite, even though the race will be run over the same surface on which the colt won in the Breeders’ Cup.

Second choice in the 12-horse field is Housebuster at 3-1. Housebuster’s stamina for the longer Triple Crown races is questionable, but he’s dangerous at the Hutcheson distance, having already won a six-furlong stake at Gulfstream three weeks ago.

Grand Canyon is in training at Santa Anita and won’t meet Rhythm again until Kentucky. Summer Squall also is in Florida.

Three of trainer Charlie Whittingham’s seven Santa Anita Handicap winners--Pretense, Ack Ack and Lord at War--also won the San Antonio Handicap. Whittingham has the potential for another such double, running Ruhlmann and Payant on Sunday in the $300,000 San Antonio.

Ruhlmann will be the high-weighted starter at 122 pounds and Payant has drawn 117 pounds. Their running styles put Whittingham in a good position. Ruhlmann has early speed and Payant likes to come from well off the pace.

Present Value, who carries 120 pounds, is also expected to start, along with Criminal Type, Complicate, Hollywood Reporter and Stylish Winner.

A successful 1989 means talented mare Bayakoa must carry 127 pounds instead of 118 in the Santa Margarita Handicap.

The 1989 Santa Margarita was seven stakes wins and one Eclipse Award ago for Bayakoa. Last year, Bayakoa was spotted seven pounds by Goodbye Halo, who finished second to her in the stake. This year, Bayakoa is the high weight and must give two pounds to Gorgeous and considerably more to any other horses in a small field.

Bayakoa carried 126 pounds and Gorgeous 125 when both horses easily won Santa Margarita prep races at Santa Anita last weekend, and Ron McAnally, who trains Bayakoa, had hoped that the spread would be the same when they have their showdown a week from Sunday. Bayakoa is attempting to become the first back-to-back winner of the Santa Margarita since Tizna in 1974-75.

California’s 3-year-olds make another attempt to sort themselves out Saturday when six run in the San Vicente Breeders’ Cup Stakes at Santa Anita. Entered in the seven-furlong race are Farma Way, Top Cash, Phantom X., Leading Laddie, Tarascon and Mister Frisky, who makes his American debut after winning 13 consecutive races in Puerto Rico.

Jockey Ron Hansen’s dual appeal for stays of an order banning him from Golden Gate Fields was denied on separate fronts Thursday.

Henry Chavez, chairman of the California Horse Racing Board, allowed Golden Gate’s ban of Hansen to remain in effect, at least until a hearing can be scheduled.

And in Alameda County Superior Court, Hansen was denied a temporary restraining order at Golden Gate, with his hearing to be continued on Feb. 28.

There were reports that Hansen might ride quarter horses at Bay Meadows this weekend, but he is not named on horses at Bay Meadows for tonight or Saturday night.

The unfortunate part about Bill Shoemaker’s last ride is that after the day--and the race--were specifically orchestrated for the convenience of ABC television, the network could squeeze in only about seven minutes on its “Wide World of Sports” program, which was dominated by boxing.

Left on the cutting-room floor were several prepared pieces on Shoemaker’s career. The telecast is just the umpteenth example of the historically difficult relationship racing has had with television.

The night before Shoemaker’s last ride, the 58-year-old jockey was honored at a charity dinner that included Bob Hope. Two of Hope’s better lines:

“People who play golf with Shoe are always worried that they’re going to lose him in the hole.”

“When Shoe was born, he was so small that the doctor went to slap him and missed.”

Horse Racing Notes

The Eclipse Awards will be presented tonight at a dinner in Miami Beach, Fla. . . . Kent Desormeaux, who will pick up his statuette for best jockey, begins riding at Santa Anita next week. A week from Monday, Desormeaux will be riding in Saudi Arabia, where Steve Cauthen once made a celebrity appearance.

Rosemary Ferraro has been reappointed by Gov. Deukmejian to another four-year term on the California Horse Racing Board. A new board member is John La Follette, a San Fernando Valley attorney who starts a four-year term as a replacement for Ray Seeley.

John Henry, who is eligible for the first time, is a cinch to be elected to racing’s Hall of Fame. There is a good chance that his trainer, Ron McAnally, also could get elected, should he wind up on the ballot.