Cinema Handicap at Hollywood Park : Valenzuela Returns and Finishes Second Again

By JAY HOVDEY

June 12, 1989 12 AM PT

<i> Special to The Times </i>

Pat Valenzuela had no complaints about Saturday’s Belmont Stakes, when he and Sunday Silence were beaten on the square by Easy Goer and still collected a $1.1 million check.

But, if he could, the jockey would like to draw a line through Sunday.

“How can I be too unhappy about the Belmont,” Valenzuela said Sunday after returning home from New York. “My horse ran a great race and I made $100,000. Today, though, just wasn’t meant to be.”

Valenzuela spent the wee hours of Sunday morning waiting for his flight out of New York, then spent the afternoon getting bounced around the racetrack at Hollywood Park.

The most costly bump came in the $107,100 Cinema Handicap when Valenzuela’s mount, Exemplary Leader, was the meat in a three-horse sandwich just a few strides from the end of the nine-furlong grass race for 3-year-olds.

The melee resulted in the disqualification of favored Notorious Pleasure and gave the race to Jack Kent Cooke’s 25-1 shot Raise a Stanza, ridden by Gary Stevens.

Exemplary Leader was moved up from third to second, and after finishing first by a head, Notorious Pleasure was dropped to third.

By all accounts, however, Notorious Pleasure was clearly the race’s best horse. Valenzuela conceded he was going to finish no better than second, with or without the interference.

Stevens even admitted that he backed into the jackpot.

“I don’t think I was going to beat Laffit,” Stevens said. “The bumping didn’t change my outcome.”

Then Stevens added with a grin: “Heck, I’d give the money back if I could. That’s just the kind of fellow I am. But the judges said their decision was final.”

It was also an easy call, which came at the end of an oddly run race.

Exemplary Leader, a near-black son of Vigors owned by Jan, Mace and Samantha Siegel, started quickly to lead the field down the chute and toward the grandstand.

It was not long, however, before Russell Baze let loose with Advocate Training, who was well beaten by Notorious Pleasure when they met three weeks earlier in the Will Rogers Handicap.

They were creeping along up front, with a slow first quarter mile and a slower second quarter. But then, with five furlongs to run, the chaos began.

Advocate Training, appearing unruly for Baze, drifted to the middle of the backstretch while still on the lead. The sudden opening took the East Coast colt Luge II by surprise, much to the concern of his rider, Chris McCarron.

“When the hole opened, my horse took off,” McCarron said. “And I think that caused Laffit’s horse to move also.”

The hole closed before Luge II could get through, but Notorious Pleasure safely slipped through on the rail. At the same time, Stevens had Raise a Stanza in gear on the far outside, making it a four-horse spread on the lead on the final turn.

To that point, nothing had gone right, as far as Pincay was concerned.

“He got the worst of the whole race,” Pincay said. “I had to rush him to keep up, and even though he got the lead late I still wasn’t sure he was going to win.

“That’s why I went to pull my stick left-handed. I didn’t even get it through before he ducked out on me, but I think he sensed I might hit him. It was too bad, because he was much the best horse.”

Hector Palma, the trainer of Notorious Pleasure, agreed. But he did not accept Pincay’s justification for drawing the whip.

“He had the race won,” said Palma, who was trying for his fourth consecutive victory with Notorious Pleasure. “Why did he think about hitting him at all?”

The disqualification gave Raise a Stanza his second stakes victory for trainer Jay Robbins. Earlier this year, the chestnut son of Raise a Man was typed as a late-running sprinter, but a switch to the turf and a few more months of maturity have increased his confidence.

Stevens even liked his chances in the Cinema, especially after working him on the morning of June 6 when Raise a Stanza had a blistering six-furlong exercise.

“Then, it helps to get a little lucky, too,” Stevens added.

Raise a Stanza earned $62,100 and returned $52.80, $11.40 and $3. Exemplary Leader paid $5.20 and $2.40, and Notorious Pleasure paid $2.20 to show.