HOLLYWOOD PARK : Familiar Faces Meet in Silver Screen

Compelling Sound, a horse who didn’t progress fast enough to reach the Kentucky Derby, and Best Pal, a Triple Crown veteran who was second in the Derby and fifth in the Preakness, make up one-third of the field Sunday in the $150,000 Silver Screen Handicap at Hollywood Park.

Two months ago, before the Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes, which neither of them ran in, these horses were part of the intrigue associated with the Santa Anita Derby. Best Pal was the favorite, despite having run only once in four months, and Compelling Sound was playing catch-up as trainer Charlie Whittingham sought another Kentucky Derby winner.

Best Pal finished half a length behind Dinard, who missed the Triple Crown because of a tendon injury. Compelling Sound was a badly beaten seventh, more than a hint to Whittingham that a trip to Churchill Downs would have been folly.

Now they are in the same race again Sunday, although their long-term agendas are different. Whittingham is convinced that Compelling Sound’s future is on grass. Best Pal will stay on dirt and be pointed for the $1-million Pacific Classic Aug. 10 at Del Mar, the track where he reeled off three stakes victories last summer.

Best Pal has drawn the rail for the Silver Screen and will carry the high weight of 123 pounds, with Pat Valenzuela riding. Compelling Sound starts from the next stall, at 118 pounds with Gary Stevens. Across the gate after them come Key Recognition, 113 pounds, Eddie Delahoussaye; Caliche’s Secret, 115, Laffit Pincay; Pillaring, 115, Alex Solis; and Nijinsky’s Prince, 114, Jose Santos.

Wrung out by the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness, Best Pal skipped the Belmont to concentrate on the Silver Screen and the $200,000 Swaps, Hollywood Park’s premier race for 3-year-olds on July 7.

Best Pal, still winless in four starts this year, has received much notoriety out of consistently high finishes before the Preakness. On Sunday the California-bred gelding returns to the track where he scored his last victory, in the $1-million Hollywood Futurity six months ago.

Compelling Sound hasn’t run on dirt since the Santa Anita Derby. He won his first grass start against allowance company at Hollywood in late April and May 18 won the 1 1/16-mile Will Rogers Handicap. The Silver Screen is 1 1/8 miles.

Friday morning, Whittingham was hurrying away from Hollywood Park, to fly to New Mexico as the guests of Clarence and Dorothy Scharbauer, who campaigned Alysheba, the horse of the year in 1988. Whittingham also was to visit Ruidoso Downs, the quarter horse track that’s part of the racing empire of R. D. Hubbard, president of Hollywood Park.

“Compelling Sound didn’t run at 2, so I had to rush him this year, trying to get him to the Derby,” Whittingham said before he left. “He’s back on dirt, but eventually I think he’ll be better on grass. He’s got a big, long stride that should help him on the turf.”

Whittingham’s other important 3-year-old, Excavate, was an early casualty because of a chipped knee. He has been recuperating at the farm and is due to rejoin Whittingham’s barn in about a month.

“The chip was at the top of the knee,” Whittingham said. “If it’s going to happen, that’s the best place for it to be, as far as healing goes.”

Stevens and Valenzuela have, in effect, switched horses for the Silver Screen, going back to mounts they had before.

Valenzuela was Best Pal’s regular rider when the horse was a 2-year-old, winning four stakes with him. With Valenzuela suspended because of drug-related problems, Jose Santos rode Best Pal in the Hollywood Futurity and then Stevens took over this year.

Stevens rode Compelling Sound in his only two victories before Valenzuela won the Will Rogers, on the same day Stevens was riding Best Pal in the Preakness.

Stevens and his agent, Ray Kravagna, spent about half an hour in trainer Wayne Lukas’ barn office Friday morning.

After the meeting, it wasn’t clear whether Stevens would retain the mount on Farma Way for the $1-million Hollywood Gold Cup on June 29. Lukas had been irate about the way Stevens rode Farma Way in the Nassau County Handicap last Saturday at Belmont Park.

Farma Way, after setting blistering fractions of :22, :44 2/5 and 1:08 4/5 in a speed duel with Jolie’s Halo for the first six furlongs, finished third, unable to withstand Festin’s late rally. Jolie’s Halo ran last.

“Gary feels bad and I feel bad about what happened,” Lukas said. “We both feel better now that we’ve talked the thing through. I gave him 10 or 12 mounts out of the new condition book, so that shows that despite this one race, we still have a solid business relationship.

“But I still think he gave away the race by the way he rode the horse. Gary told me that he never makes the same mistake twice. If he should lose the mount, I don’t want it interpreted as a vindictive thing.

“Right now I’m concerned about the best interests of the horse--who I still think is the best in the country--and about getting him to relax again. That was his trouble last year (under trainer Neil Boyce), and I worked hard to get him where he was.

“I’m still going to take a long look at what has to be done. The decision is mine alone. The owner (George Bunn) is leaving it up to me.”

Lukas said that he must make his decision about Farma Way soon, because Stevens has offers to ride at least three other horses--one of them Prized--in the Gold Cup.

Horse Racing Notes

The American Championship Racing Series drops from 10 to nine races next year, and ABC, which is televising all but one of the races this year, will carry only six in 1992, with ESPN doing the others. . . . The Pacific Classic at Del Mar will be the final race in next year’s series, to be run on Aug. 29. The Woodward Stakes at Belmont Park, which winds up the series this year, won’t be part of the series in 1992.

The other races in next year’s series have not changed--the Donn Handicap at Gulfstream Park, the Santa Anita Handicap, the Oaklawn Handicap, the Pimlico Special, the Nassau County Handicap (again on the same day as the Belmont Stakes), the Hollywood Gold Cup, the New England Classic at Rockingham Park and the Iselin Handicap at Monmouth Park. . . . The races ABC is dropping are the Pimlico Special and the Iselin.

“When the series started this year, there was the understanding that the final race every other year would be in California,” said Tom Robbins, who heads the racing departments at Santa Anita and Del Mar. “Next year, the best date for this is the Pacific Classic. In future years, there’s the possibility that the final race might be part of the Oak Tree meeting at Santa Anita.”