HORSE RACING: O'NEILL GETS WIN, SANCTIONS.Byline: KEVIN MODESTI Staff Writer INGLEWOOD -- Lava Man looked like a big-time racehorse racehorse refers usually to thoroughbred but may also include standardbred, trotter. again Saturday at Hollywood Park when he and jockey Corey Nakatani led from gate to wire in the $300,000 Whittingham Memorial. So why did his trainer sound a little sheepish sheep·ish adj. 1. Embarrassed, as by consciousness of a fault: a sheepish grin. 2. Meek or stupid. sheep ? Lava Man won the Whittingham by two lengths over King's Drama to add a Grade I-level victory on turf to his triumphs in last summer's Hollywood Gold Cup The Hollywood Gold Cup is a Grade I stakes race for thoroughbred horses inaugurated in 1938 at Hollywood Park Racetrack in Inglewood, California. It was run as a handicap race until 1997 when it was switched to weight-for-age conditions. and this winter's Santa Anita Handicap The Santa Anita Handicap is an American Thoroughbred horse race held annually in the late winter at Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, California. It is a Grade I race for horses three years old and up, and is considered the most important race for older horses in North America during on the main track, a display of versatility that's starting to inspire John Henry comparisons. But winning trainer Doug O'Neill seemed subdued following the race, which came just hours after six badge-wearing state agents walked into his barn to announce that Southern California's leading thoroughbred trainer has run afoul of medication rules and faces a month of sanctions. According to a statement issued through Hollywood Park publicists, O'Neill-trained Wisdom Cat's blood sample following an eighth-place finish May 27 contained a higher-than-permitted level of carbon dioxide carbon dioxide, chemical compound, CO2, a colorless, odorless, tasteless gas that is about one and one-half times as dense as air under ordinary conditions of temperature and pressure. . Under the more than two-year-old penalty program designed to curtail so-called ``milkshake'' doping doping, in electronics: see semiconductor. Altering the electrical conductivity of a semiconductor material, such as silicon, by chemically combining it with foreign elements. , O'Neill's runners will be held in a prerace detention barn for 30 days starting Wednesday. O'Neill leads the Hollywood Park trainer standings with 18victories. ``It's more of an embarrassment,'' O'Neill said of the medication offense. ``The layman is going to read that and think, `Doug O'Neill is sticking a tube down a horse's nostrils (to administer a milkshake).''' O'Neill said he thinks the test finding is a mistake. ``I'm not happy with any of it, and I'm completely innocent of doing anything wrong,'' said the 38-year-old Santa Monica resident who has won training titles at all four Southern California thoroughbred tracks since 2002. ``(Wisdom Cat) was brought to the races the same as the 1,500 other horses I've run. ... It (a bad test) can happen to anybody and any horse.'' O'Neill's punishment will force Lava Man to run out of the detention barn when the 5-year-old gelding gelding castrated male horse. makes his next scheduled start in the July8 Hollywood Gold Cup. The Charles Whittingham Memorial Handicap The Charles Whittingham Memorial Handicap is an American Thoroughbred horse race run annually at Hollywood Park Racetrack. Until 1999 it was named the Hollywood Invitational Turf Handicap, often just referred to as the Hollywood Invitational Handicap. , a 1 1/4-mile turf race named for the late Hall of Fame trainer, marked Lava Man's 11th win in 31 career starts. The California-bred is 7 for 10 and has earned $2.3 million since being claimed for $50,000 at Del Mar in 2005. ``He reminds me of a horse like John Henry,'' Nakatani said, referring to the rags-to-riches gelding of the early 1980s. ``He's won on turf and dirt -- he can do it all.'' heymodesti(at)aol.com (818) 713-3616 |
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