`BEST' YET TO COME AS SEASON WINDS DOWN : MANY HONORS LEFT TO BE CLAIMED.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI

Hollywood Park's 67-day season, which ends Monday afternoon, has been forgettable in both economic and aesthetic terms. It's too late to erase those minus signs in the attendance and wagering columns. But it's not too late for ``Super Sunday'' to give us some memories to carry to Del Mar.

The importance of Sunday's four graded stakes is evident if you look at how many of the ``best of the meet'' honors remain up for grabs:

Horse of the meet: Up for grabs. Fastness, the brilliant gray miler, is the leader in the clubhouse. But Sandpit, one of the Brazilians in Richard Mandella's barn, could samba past him with a sharp victory in the $700,000 Caesars Palace Turf Championship - formerly the Sunset - on Sunday.

Older male: Wrapped up when Siphon, another Mandella Brazilian, took the Hollywood Gold Cup from gate to wire at 9-1 after winning the Mervyn LeRoy Handicap in a meet-best 1:40 2/5 for the common distance of 1 1/16 miles.

Older female: Up for grabs. The division's six Grade I and II stakes had six different winners. Two of them, Twice the Vice and Borodislew, might face Serena's Song in the $250,000 Vanity Handicap on Sunday.

3-year-old: UFG. Hesabull, a double stakes winner at the meet, is a 5-2 third choice on the morning line behind D. Wayne Lukas-trained Victory Speech and Prince of Thieves in the $500,000 Swaps Stakes on Sunday.

3-year-old filly: Listening upset Antespend to keep the honor in Ron McAnally's barn.

2-year-old: UFG. Lukas' Prairie Junction ships in from Kentucky to challenge 3-for-3 Swiss Yodeler in the $100,000 Hollywood Juvenile Championship on Sunday.

2-year-old filly: Starry Ice is the one as the meet's only triple stakes winner against a thin division.

Turf horse: UFG. Fastness or Sandpit.

Sprinter: A dead heat: Abaginone and Paying Dues finished on even terms in the meet-opening Los Angeles Handicap and their time - 1:08 1/5 - remains the season's fastest 6 furlongs.

Claimer: Courageous Wonder ran second for $20,000, won for $16,000 twice and for $25,000 once while jumping from trainer Roger Stein to Bob Hess Jr. to Robert Marshall.

Jockey: UFG. Alex Solis has more total winners. Corey Nakatani can catch Eddie Delahoussaye in stakes wins.

Trainer: UFG. It was a four-way battle as Thursday began.

Race of the meet: UFG. We hope.

In other news:

Closing arguments were heard Thursday, and stewards could rule this weekend on the morphine case involving Bobby Frankel-trained Nimble Mind, Juddmonte Farms' filly who tested positive after winning a Santa Anita allowance race Jan. 3. Defense attorneys tried to prove the culprit is not Frankel but . . . bagels. Employees testified they ate poppy-seed bagels and muffins at the barn. A UC Davis vet fed poppy seeds to four horses and their urine samples produced morphine in higher concentrations than the Nimble Mind test. The state's chief vet testified the small amount shouldn't have affected the horse.

In another example of racing's slipshod record-keeping, it was discovered that Gary Stevens rode his 4,000th winner without fanfare a few days before he injured his shoulder June 5. A Daily Racing Form statistician said Thursday that Stevens' 20 victories in Hong Kong last year and one in Dubai in March were only recently counted. Stevens' total: 4,002. A similar mix-up spoiled the celebration of Laffit Pincay's 8,000th winner in 1993.

It's too early to get excited about this, but Hollywood Park has proposed a 1998 calendar that would shorten the major Santa Anita season; move the Fairplex Park meet to July, between Hollywood and Del Mar; move the Hollywood fall meet before Oak Tree; and create an 11-day break before the Dec. 26 Santa Anita opener.

That's not all: Hollywood Park, which has experimented with a range of starting times, is studying the benefits of changing to a 3:30 p.m. first post every day but Friday (which would remain 7 p.m.) as early as its fall '96 season. Racing currently starts at 1 p.m. The expected benefits of a ``twilight'' schedule: lighter traffic for fans driving to and from the races, and an easier Saturday-after-Friday-night turnaround for fans and participants.

This is just a personal opinion shared by almost everybody I know, but Friday nights at Hollywood Park are just too loud. Music. Dancing girls. It's like an Angels game!

Unbridled, the object of Japanese offers, has instead been sold by Frances A. Genter Stable Inc. to Claiborne Farm in Lexington for $19 million. When you think about the job description, that's a better deal than Shaq's. Unbridled, the '90 Kentucky Derby winner, sired '96 Derby favorite Unbridled's Song and winner Grindstone.

At the Thoroughbred Owners of California annual meeting last weekend at Hollywood Park, a member passed around a petition she planned to send to a Los Angeles newspaper, requesting more racing coverage. (Not this Los Angeles newspaper.) But it's hard to blame the press for waning interest in racing when fewer than 100 TOC members show up for a meeting. The association claims 9,000 members, including 3,000 active owners.

The Racing Form reports that Shin Zan has died peacefully. He was twice Japanese Horse of the YEar and a major sire. Just as significant: He was, at age 36, one of the few remaining thoroughbreds older than me.

Del Mar opens Wednesday. Tacked on the bulletin board in the Hollywood Park racing office is an ad for beachside living space in a ``newly remolded hotel.'' For those who prefer their mold fresh.

MEMO: Staff Writer Kevin Modesti's horse racing column appears on Fridays.