It’s a Fitting End to Meeting for the Mosses and Mitchell

Jaded horseplayers aren’t supposed to care, but the sentimental exacta for Monday’s season-ending Robert K. Kerlan Memorial Handicap at Hollywood Park would have been Lexicon, owned by Jerry and Ann Moss, and Fearless Pirate, trained by Mike Mitchell.

Over the years, no one in the racing game could have been closer to Kerlan, the renowned orthopedic surgeon who died in 1996. Jerry Moss stands a full 6-foot-5 today because of some back work orchestrated by Kerlan about 20 years ago, and Mitchell, for the last three years that Kerlan lived, was the doctor’s daily conduit to the sport he loved.

The sentimental exacta made it home. Lexicon, winning the first stake of his career, captured the Kerlan by one length, with Fearless Pirate second.

“This is a special race for me to win,” Jerry Moss said. “Bob Kerlan was a great friend. He saved my life. I had a serious back problem, a disk had blown up on me, and I was in horrible shape. He chose the surgeon, and then he quarterbacked me through the recovery. I miss Bob a lot. I was lucky to know him.”

Kerlan, who worked for the Dodgers, Lakers and Rams in addition to Hollywood Park, was a clinical professor in USC’s Dept. of Orthopedic Surgery before his retirement in 1994, and in May, in Kerlan’s memory, record executive Moss pledged $750,000 to establish a professorship in sports medicine at the school.

“It was difficult for Bob to move,” Moss said, referring to Kerlan’s severe arthritis, “but he always carried himself with elegance and courage. I really loved him. He meant a lot to me personally, and if this [professorship] can keep alive his memory and what he stood for, it’s something my wife and I are very proud to do.”

Moss had high hopes for Lexicon, a son of 1982 horse of the year Conquistador Cielo.

“Then he ran his first three races and got beat by about 60 lengths,” Moss said.”

After that, Lexicon was tossed into claiming company and could have been taken for $50,000 in a maiden race at Hollywood Park last year. Since then, he has turned into an honest sprinter--dirt or turf--for the Mosses and trainer Richard Mandella. In the Kerlan, a 5 1/2-furlong grass race, Lexicon went to the front in the six-horse field and never faltered. In a time of 1:02 2/5, he posted his fifth win, to go with five seconds and one third, in 16 tries. He’s two out of three on the grass at Hollywood.

“This certainly was a nice way to end the meet, and I hope it’s a prelude of what’s to come,” said Kent Desormeaux, who rode Lexicon. “Five and a half furlongs just hits this horse between the eyes. Today he got out OK, and I had the fastest engine and the prettiest car. There were no mistakes.”

Monday’s card brought to an end the R.D. Hubbard era at Hollywood Park, the track having been sold to Churchill Downs in a $140-million deal in May. Martin Panza’s racing department struggled most of the meet, trying to fill overnight races and hard-pressed to assemble fields for stakes races with rich purses attached.

“We averaged about 7.8 horses a race, but that figure is deceiving,” Panza said. “The maiden races brought up that number, but allowance races and stakes were tough to fill. There’s no one thing that contributed. There’s a horse shortage, everybody knows about that, and some high-profile horses got hurt, and for whatever reason some big barns just weren’t running any horses.

“It’s not just us that’s affected. Del Mar might start big, but they’ll have a tough time too, by the time they get to the end of the meet. There are numbers out there that indicate more mares than ever are being bred in California. It’s going to take two or three years for those crops to catch up to us, but at least that’s an encouraging sign.”

During Hollywood Park’s 66-day meeting, attendance was markedly down in every aspect. There was a 5.4% drop on-track, to 9,820 a day, and off-track the numbers sank by almost 6%. On-track betting dropped 4.4%, with other betting bringing the daily average up to $11 million, almost to the penny what it was a year ago.

The circuit moves to Del Mar, where the seaside track’s meeting begins on Thursday, its first non-Wednesday opener in 29 years.

Horse Racing Notes

Meeting titles went to jockey Alex Solis, who won 57 races, nine more than runner-up David Flores, and trainer Ron McAnally, who saddled 25 winners, six more than Bob Baffert. Garrett Gomez rode the most stakes winners--seven--and McAnally and Richard Mandella, with five apiece, finished one behind Baffert in the same department. . . . The last two days were tough for the McAnally barn. Plicck, winner of Sunday’s Sunset Handicap, was vanned off after the race, and Sam’s, the second choice in the Kerlan Handicap, was pulled up on the far turn and also left by horse ambulance. Plicck has a tendon injury and his future as a racehorse won’t be known for a few days. . . . Emma Java, fifth in the second race on May 20, tested positive for Tramadol, a synthetic analgesic. The stewards suspended Lonnie Stokes, Emma Java’s trainer, for 30 days.

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Del Mar at a Glance

* Dates--Thursday through Sept. 8 (42 racing days).

* First post--2 p.m., except 4 p.m. on July 23 and 30, Aug. 6 and 13; 3:30 p.m. on Aug. 20 and 27, Sept. 3; 12:30 p.m. on Aug. 29, Sept. 6.

* Dark days--All Tuesdays.

* First stake--$75,000 Oceanside (two divisions) on Thursday.

* Major races--$400,000 Eddie Read Handicap, Aug. 1; $250,000 San Diego Handicap, Aug. 7; $300,000 Chula Vista Handicap, Aug. 8; $250,000 Del Mar Oaks, Aug. 22; $250,000 Del Mar Handicap, Aug. 28; $1-million Pacific Classic, Aug. 29; $250,000 Vinery Del Mar Debutante, Aug. 29 (cq); $300,000 Del Mar Derby, Sept. 6; $250,000 Del Mar Futurity, Sept. 8.

* Last year’s jockey champion--Corey Nakatani, 44 wins.

* Last year’s trainer champion--Bob Baffert, 18 wins.