HOLLYWOOD PARK : Kostroma Saves Jones’ Long Weekend

For a few minutes it looked like another day, another odds-on favorite down the tubes for trainer Gary Jones.

After saddling Best Pal for his fourth-place finish at 3-5 in Saturday’s Pimlico Special, Jones had hurried back to Hollywood Park from Baltimore to supervise Kostroma’s running in Sunday’s $107,500 Wilshire Handicap.

“You win a race like the Special and you fly home on your own power,” Jones said. “You lose, and it’s an awfully long trip. I had about four hours sleep. I’m dragging.”

Maybe Kostroma will get Jones’ adrenalin going again. The 6-year-old grass mare, sent off at 2-5, appeared to run out of ground in the stretch of the 1 1/16-mile Wilshire.

Jones believed Danzante, at 15-1, had beaten his horse when he watched the race, and he didn’t change his mind after looking at the replay while the photo-finish picture was being developed.

But the camera on the wire doesn’t lie, and it was Kostroma’s low-bobbing nose that hit the finish line first for the $62,500 victory.

“When I watched the replay on the big (infield) screen, I didn’t think there was any way I could have lost,” said Gary Stevens, who rode Danzante. “The way they finished made the difference. Kostroma’s head was low, and my filly’s was straight up.”

In a six-horse field that was reduced by the scratches of Only Yours and Sha Tha, Kostroma was ahead of only one horse all the way, until she and jockey Kent Desormeaux swept around the front-runners on the turn for home. Kostroma made up about four lengths in the stretch, even though Danzante never quit running.

“My horse was the only filly in the world that could have caught that filly today,” said Desormeaux, who was also working with little sleep after having ridden Best Pal on Saturday. “My mare was getting late, but in those last couple of strides, she was really game.”

Kostroma carried high weight of 123 pounds, six more than Crystal Gazing, the next horse on the weights, and nine more than Danzante. Crystal Gazing finished last.

This was the sixth consecutive time Desormeaux has ridden the Irish-bred Kostroma, and the only race they have lost was a sixth-place finish in the Matriarch at Hollywood Park last November.

Kostroma, owned by the William de Burgh, Robert Sangster and the Preston brothers--Jack, Art and J.R.--paid $2.80 and was timed in 1:41 1/5. Danzante’s pace-setting fractions were slow, the first half-mile creeping by in 48 4/5 seconds before she shifted into high gear for a 1:35 3/5 mile. “I never saw that in my life,” Jones said.

Danzante, a French import who had won two of four starts since making her American debut at Santa Anita in January, finished three lengths ahead of Appealing Missy.

Weights were on Gary Jones’ mind as he reviewed the Pimlico Special.

“I think the weight had as much to do with the way Best Pal ran as anything else,” Jones said. “We carried 126 pounds and gave 12 pounds to the winner (Strike The Gold) and 10 pounds to the horse (Fly So Free) that finished second. These are good horses. I don’t care how many races Strike The Gold lost (12) after he won the (1991) Kentucky Derby, he still won the Derby. We were giving a lot of weight to two established stakes winners.”

Best Pal is still the point leader after round four of the nine-race American Championship Racing Series.

Three of the remaining races in the series are in the East, plus two $1-million races in California, the Hollywood Gold Cup on June 27 and the Pacific Classic at Del Mar that ends the series on Aug. 30.

“Best Pal’s coming home,” Jones said. “We may not run in the Gold Cup. We might just wait for the Pacific Classic (which Best Pal won a year ago) and then get him ready for the Breeders’ Cup (at Gulfstream Park Oct. 31).”

Horse Racing Notes

A.P. Indy will work six furlongs either today or Tuesday at Churchill Downs before a decision is made about his running in Saturday’s Preakness at Pimlico. “There have been torrential rains in Kentucky,” said trainer Neil Drysdale, who was at Hollywood Park Sunday to saddle Crystal Gazing in the Wilshire Handicap. “The track condition will determine which day we work him.” . . . Pistols And Roses, who ran 16th in the Kentucky Derby, is out of the Preakness because of a sprained left foreleg. . . . Based on Sunday’s on-track attendance of 17,850, Hollywood Park and several corporate contributors are expected to raise more than $85,000 for aid to the communities that were hit by rioting and looting in recent weeks. Hollywood Park had pledged $2 per admission for this cause, and combined with the corporate support the average will grow to about $5 per admission.