By ED GOLDEN

Gentlemen shoots for Gold Cup
Mandella prepares the horse for June 28 race

THERE AREN’T MANY trainers better than Richard Mandella at getting a horse ready to win off a layoff.

But getting a horse — even one as good as Gentlemen — ready to win after being away from the races nearly four months, especially against a horse the caliber of Skip Away, may be quite another piece of work.

Yet that’s Mandella’s challenge as he prepares Gentlemen for the June 28 Hollywood Gold Cup. It will be the Argentine-bred’s first start since finishing fourth and last as the 1-20 favorite in the March 7 Santa Anita Handicap.

"You’ve got to get him ready to run his best race, not just get him ready to run and start," Mandella said.

IT’S NOT UNCOMMON to "give" a horse a race when a trainer has a bigger prize in mind down the road. But with a $1 million purse and a $600,000 winner’s share at stake in the Gold Cup, such is not the case.

"You just have to squeeze a little tighter, that’s all," Mandella said. "If you were thinking, ‘we’ll run him here and he won’t need to be at his best,’ well, we can’t do that. We need to be at our best. That’s why we’re going a mile in 1:36 and change and giving him solid, steady works (Gentlemen worked a mile in 1:36 3/5 on June 8)."

Translation: the Hollywood Gold Cup is no prep race for Gentlemen, who happens to be owned by Hollywood Park chairman and CEO R.D. Hubbard. You know he does not want to be embarrassed, especially on his home court, where Skip Away was a smashing winner of the Breeders’ Cup Classic last Nov. 6.

Skip Away no doubt is by far the best horse ever to come along for trainer Sonny Hine and his wife, Carolyn, who owns the horse. He won the Massachusetts Handicap under 130 pounds on May 30, setting a Suffolk Downs record for 1 1/8 miles. Skip Away, a two-time Eclipse Award winner, finished a half-length behind Gentlemen in the 1997 Pimlico Special, but brings a six-race winning streak into the Grade I Gold Cup.

But Mandella feels the jury is still out when it comes to including Skip Away among thoroughbred’s all-time elite.

"I don’t know that he’s beaten any great horses yet," Mandella said. "But he’s beaten good-enough ones, and he looks awesome doing it."

THE HOMESTRETCH: Mandella said he might run Puerto Madera in the Gold Cup, along with Gentlemen. Puerto Madera was a game but distant second to Skip Away in the Masscap. Another Mandella runner, Santa Anita Handicap winner Malek, will not make the Gold Cup due to a back problem . . . Skip Away is scheduled to be flown from New York to Los Angeles on June 25. Skip Away has earned $8,306,360, second only to Cigar’s $9,999,815 . . . Don’t expect any official word for perhaps a week from the California Horse Racing Board’s "Spanish Inquisition" of trainers Bruce Headley, Darrell Vienna, Bob Marshall and Ted West. "The investigation is still ongoing, so at this point, we can’t disclose anything," said CHRB supervising investigator Mike Kilpack. "Our policy is that we can’t quote on anything until the investigation is complete, out of fairness to everybody." A reliable source said the trainers’ barns at Santa Anita were searched by the CHRB and the Arcadia Police Department. They could have been looking for illegal drugs used either on horses or by employees. The 61-year-old West’s barn has had an upsurge in winners in recent months, including Budroyale, a $50,000 claim on Feb. 15 who won the Grade III San Bernardino Handicap on April 11. "We want to know if they find anything," said one veteran racetracker. "So far, we haven’t heard of anybody being in trouble." . . . Gary Stevens will join the New York jockey colony this fall. "This is something my agent (Ron Anderson) and I have wanted to try for four years," Stevens said. "We came close last year, but then when I didn’t make it, I looked like a fool. This time, we are definitely going to Saratoga and to Belmont in the fall. As a matter of fact, we even thought about coming to New York and staying right after the Kentucky Derby, but we decided to pick it up in Saratoga. Bill Shoemaker, Laffit Pincay Jr., Eddie Arcaro and Bill Hartack always used to ride on both coasts, so this is nothing new." . . . Charlie Whittingham’s best years as a trainer are behind him, but what years they were. Consider this: when Ron McAnally won both of Hollywood Park’s stakes races on May 31, they were his 90th and 91st, second all-time at the Inglewood track. Whittingham is first with a mind-boggling 222. That’s 222 stakes races!