GOLDEN GLIMPSES #77

Gary Stevens is missing one piece of hardware in a career year. The 34-year-old jockey from Caldwell, Idaho has already won the Kentucky Derby and Preakness, and came within three-quarters of a length of sweeping the Triple Crown in the Belmont aboard Silver Charm.

Three days before he won his third Kentucky Derby, he was elected to racing's Hall of Fame.

When he won Sunday's $1-million Hollywood Gold Cup on Gentlemen, it was his 13th stakes win in the United States this year and his sixth Grade I. It's still early, but if his luck holds, Stevens could win his first Eclipse Award as outstanding jockey.

"I don't want to jinx anything," said Stevens' multi-dimensional agent, Ron Anderson, "but everything seems to be falling into place (for the Eclipse). As well as things are going now, you still have to finish up the year strong, because the voters forget. But right now, things seem to be in line.

"We'll just keep our fingers crossed. The year before last we won 52 stakes and weren't here (in the U.S.) for over three months, and we didn't win the Eclipse. But that's because we ran into Cigar (and Jerry Bailey, who won the award)."

This year, Bailey might come close. But there's no Cigar

ELMHURST -- In fine form for leading trainer Sahadi. Just missed in Triple Bend while rallying wide from far back at 6-1. Deserves another try.

FULL MOON MADNESS -- Well-meant first-timer didn't fancy rail but closed with good energy and won't be a maiden long.

O'HACCO -- Consistent filly was dead short and pitched a bit high in first start in seven months. Should improve at good value next time.

THE HOMESTRETCH: Hollywood Park's stable area, scheduled to be closed at the end of this meet, will remain open to horsemen for training during Del Mar. Normally, Santa Anita would accommodate horsemen this summer, as Hollywood and Santa Anita alternate, and it's Santa Anita's turn. But Santa Anita has a major waste water project and numerous repairs to complete in its stable area prior to the opening of Oak Tree in early October. Obviously, it's easier to pull that off with no horse population. "The situation is this," said Hollywood GM Eual Wyatt Jr. "Every year you're closed, whether it's us or Santa Anita, it provides an opportunity to do some maintenance on your backstretch area. We are staying open because the horsemen want us to. It won't affect our preparation for anything we have planned for the Breeders' Cup (on Nov. 8). We can work around the horses and do it in a professional way. Nothing we have to do is major. Our barn area is in great shape, but we do have some things we do routinely and we'll do them." Said trainer Richard Mandella: "I think it's great. It's cooler at Hollywood in the summer, and if it's for the purpose of doing a lot of work on the backside of Santa Anita, it's very well worth any inconvenience." . . . MGM, as in the MGM Grand Classic bonus, stands for Metro Goldywn Mayer, of course. But it should have stood for Mandella's Grand Monopoly. Mandella sent out five of the six horses in the Gold Cup, with Gentlemen, Siphon and Sandpit running 1-2-3. Siphon, Sandpit and Gentlemen finished 1-2-3 in the $1-million Santa Anita Handicap last March, and Mandella is pointing all three to a third $1-million race, the final leg of the MGM Grand Classic Crown, the Pacific Classic at Del Mar on Aug. 9. Mandella, with 20-20 hindsight, would have preferred to have had a race for Siphon before the Gold Cup. "It was disappointing that we didn't get to make it, but I really was confident I had him as good as could be going in," Mandella said of his committed front-runner. "But by the time they came to the quarter pole, I could see it was starting to tell on him a little bit. I'm not ashamed of the job I did. He ran well, and it took a Gentleman to beat him." . . . Hollywood will present a special 1 1/4-mile stakes race on Nov. 30 as an alternative to the Breeders' Cup Classic, to accommodate horses that won't run because they were not originally nominated: "The date is firm," said R.D. Hubbard. "It's the same day as the Matriarch and the Hollywood Derby." The purse could go as high as $1 million and could attract Silver Charm, Free House, Siphon, Gentlemen, Skip Away and Sandpit, none of which is eligible to the Breeders' Cup . . . Bob Baffert, asked about Silver Charm's agenda, was quick as ever with the quip: "I can't talk about it. Bob Lewis has me on a gag order." Seriously, the Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner was due to arrive at Baffert's Santa Anita headquarters Monday from Churchill Downs. "He'll get ready here, then go to Monmouth for the Haskell on Aug. 3. If all's well, he'll go on to the Travers at Saratoga on Aug. 23." Asked how the gray colt would handle Monmouth's racing surface, Baffert said, "I don't even know where the bleep Monmouth is. I've never been there. Never had a reason to go." He's in for a pleasant surprise. Monmouth Park is in the seaside resort town of Oceanport, N.J, hard by Asbury Park, and one of the most meticulously appointed and most picturesque tracks in the country. David Hofmans, trainer of Triple Crown spoiler Touch Gold, was meeting with the colt's majority owner, Frank Stronach, in Canada over the weekend to decide on either the Swaps or the Haskell. On the retirement of Breeders' Cup Classic winner Alphabet Soup, Hofmans, surprisingly, did not name the upset of Cigar as his favorite race. "It was the Bing Crosby at Del Mar last year, when he got off slow and came on to beat (Breeders' Cup Sprint champion) Lit De Justice." . . . Jack Leone, VP of Communications at the MGM Grand, estimated the Tyson-Holyfield fight was watched by "maybe a billion-plus viewers," including those in China. There were 1,200 media credentials issued for the fight. Leone and race book boss Will Hall were at Hollywood Park for the Gold Cup draw. And speaking of Bite Night in Las Vegas, what boxing's version of Hannibal Lechter did could have been much worse. Imagine if Tyson had taken off his gloves and slapped Holyfield silly, or even worse, scratched his eyes out. For sure, it was one ear-ie evening . . . Add Golden winners: Kelleric, $11.20.

Send e-mail to Ed Golden

The Running Horse (http://www.isd1.com/)