HOLLYWOOD PARK: SMOOTH PLAYER TAKES MEETING : LONG SHOT SCORES UPSET OVER 2-5 SHOT IN HOLLYWOOD OAKS.

Byline: Kevin Modesti Staff Writer

It might indeed be Super Sunday for trainer Bob Baffert and owners John and Betty Mabee, who expect General Challenge to win the Swaps Stakes, highlight of today's rich Hollywood Park card.

But it won't be a super weekend.

Baffert and the Mabees sent Excellent Meeting and Kent Desormeaux into the $150,000 Hollywood Oaks at 2-5 odds on Saturday only to watch them get outrun by 13-1 long shot Smooth Player and jockey Eddie Delahoussaye.

``Every day can't be Christmas,'' Baffert said after the second-place finish by California's top 3-year-old filly - frustrating because she was boxed in the middle of the five-horse field for most of the 1-1/8-mile race and because she seemed to have both the room and the time in the stretch to overcome the trouble.

``When you have five horses like that, you're always going to have (traffic) problems,'' Baffert said.

Baffert didn't place the blame on Desormeaux, though a few vocal fans sounded as if they did.

From the outside starting stall, Desormeaux took Excellent Meeting back to last and swung her toward the rail in the first turn, saving ground but allowing Alex Solis (aboard Dianehill) and Corey Nakatani (aboard Colorado Song) to trap the favorite behind pacesetters Smooth Player and Nany's Sweep.

Although Desormeaux found daylight in the stretch, Excellent Meeting was able to mount only a steady rally against Smooth Player, who held on to win by a half-length and pay $29.80, giving Delahoussaye his fourth Oaks victory, trainer Dan Hendricks and owners John Spohler and Marty and Pam Wygod their first.

Was it Desormeaux's fault or Excellent Meeting's?

``I had a quarter-mile to make up a length,'' the rider said, although the deficit might have been more than that. ``She came up empty.''

He speculated that Excellent Meeting's hard-fought victory over Colorado Song in last month's Princess Stakes took something out of her. After a brilliant win, she has lost three of four starts, including a strong fourth in the Kentucky Derby and a did-not-finish in the Preakness.

Three colts who ran against Excellent Meeting in the Derby will be in the $500,000 Swaps - Cat Thief (third), General Challenge (11th) and Desert Hero (13th). There's only one other entrant - 1-for-10 Walk That Walk.

The four-horse field for the 1-1/4-mile event could produce another tactical race, like the four-horse Hollywood Gold Cup, won last month by Baffert-trained Real Quiet after a hair-raising trip, and the five-horse Oaks.

But Baffert said Saturday, ``I'm not worried about (General Challenge). David (Flores) will get him around there all right.''

General Challenge regained his Santa Anita Derby-winning form in last month's Affirmed Handicap.

Now Baffert and the Mabees think he can use a Swaps victory as a springboard to winning the $1 million Pacific Classic at Del Mar. Best Pal, another California-bred gelding owned by the Mabees, did that in 1991.

General Challenge is 4-5 on the morning line against 2-1 Desert Hero (Jerry Bailey), trying to build on an encouraging second in the Affirmed, and 5-2 Cat Thief (Pat Day), trying to end a nine-month stretch of solid but winless efforts in major stakes.

The Swaps accounts for most of the nearly $1 million in stakes purses on the so-called Super Sunday program. Also on the card: the $250,000 Sunset Handicap on turf, the $100,000 Hollywood Juvenile Championship for 2-year-olds, and the $100,000 Answer Do for Cal-bred sprinters.

Notes: Tuzla lived up to trainer Julio Canani's claim that she's the nation's best female miler by rallying at the rail with Corey Nakatani to win the Royal Heroine Stakes early on the Hollywood Park card. It was the fourth stakes victory in a row for the 5-year-old owned by TV producer David Milch. . . . The lone perfect pick-six ticket paid $173,846. . . . D. Wayne Lukas-trained 3-year-old Yes It's True and Jerry Bailey beat Good and Tough by three-quarters of a length in Laurel Park's De Francis Memorial Dash, one of the year's major sprints. That's 10 stakes already for Yes It's True. . . . Showgun, in the Hollywood nightcap, gave Emile Ramsammy his first victory since returning Thursday from a collarbone fracture. . . . Laffit Pincay, 68 away from Bill Shoemaker's record 8,833 wins, took a rare day off because of a toothache. . . . Belmont Park jockey Richard Migliore will need surgery to repair a compound fracture of his right arm after an accident in which Ariel Smith also fell but escaped injury. Migliore, 35, whose comeback from a neck injury a decade ago was documented on ``Rescue 911,'' went down Saturday when J Carson had a fatal breakdown.