SOLIS IN RACING SLUMP; JOCKEY SAYS SLIDE HAS BEEN A WAKE-UP CALL.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI

The mystery of the summer is the disappearance of Alex Solis from the Hollywood Park top 10, a year after he was the track's leading jockey.

One explanation is simple bad luck: Going into Thursday's races, Solis had only 11 winners in 161 tries, but 38 seconds and 25 thirds. He ranked 14th in victories, but third in in-the-money finishes.

``If half of those seconds had won, it would have been a great meet,'' said Solis, who believes he's riding as well as ever.

The surprise is that the 34-year-old Panamanian isn't getting the quality of horses he rode before spending much of March and April out of town, competing in rich races in Dubai and Saudi Arabia and on the Triple Crown trail. He is, after all, the same Solis who won six straight major Southern California riding titles in 1996 and '97.

Solis, interviewed Thursday in the Hollywood Park jockeys room, refused to criticize the trainers and owners who pass him over, though he said it's ``nice when somebody stays loyal to you.''

But his agent, Scott McClellan, said he thinks trainers are finding it easy to blame Solis for defeats because his low winning percentage ``magnifies'' bad racing luck.

Solis called it his worst slump in 10 years but said he feels better since winning his first stakes race of the meet with Son of a Pistol in Sunday's Triple Bend Handicap.

``I hate to put it this way, but I'm glad it happened,'' he said of the slump. ``Sometimes you get too comfortable, because you do so well for so long. These things happen for a very good reason, to give you the drive back.''

Upping the ante: No surprise, considering the success of Hollywood Park's guaranteed $1 million pick-six on June 14, the track will try it again by guaranteeing a $1.5 million pool on July 18.

There will be a mandatory payout that Saturday, meaning five winners will be rewarded like six if nobody has a perfect ticket. Also, the track will pay a $500,000 bonus if only one ticket has all six winners.

Last month, the guarantee produced a Hollywood Park-record $3.3 million pick-six pool, paying $53,357 to each of 35 perfect tickets.

The weekend: The Beverly Hills Handicap, the meet's championship race for turf fillies and mares, heads a three-stakes card on the Fourth of July at Hollywood Park.

Fiji, the nation's top-ranked filly, is skipping the 1-1/4-mile race because trainer Neil Drysdale wouldn't accept 125 pounds. Leading an eight-horse field are Sixy Saint, whose four-race winning streak includes a victory over Fiji, and Squeak, an English import who was third to Fiji in the Gamely Handicap last time out.

Also on the Saturday card: the American Handicap, a 1-1/8-mile turf race that looks tougher than last year for defending champion El Angelo, and the Playa del Rey, a 3-year-old sprint featuring Souvenir Copy.

Anything for a win: When Laffit Pincay surpasses Bill Shoemaker's 8,833 victories, nobody will be able to say he coasted to the record.

For years, the 51-year-old Pincay has ridden at 117 pounds on a middleweight's frame. But last week, trainer Richard Mandella asked him to lose a pound to ride Supercilious in the Fran's Valentine Stakes. Pincay did it, and they won by a head.

``I really made an effort to lose the pound,'' Pincay said. ``I can do it, but if I stayed like this I'd probably be weak tomorrow. It was sure worth it.''

Pincay, winning at a strong 18 percent clip at Hollywood Park, soon will draw within 200 winners of Shoemaker.

He'll be at Prairie Meadows, near Des Moines, Iowa, on Saturday to ride Pacificbounty in the $300,000 Cornhusker Breeders' Cup Handicap.

Bob bashing: Also getting lighter is the Bob Baffert bandwagon. Since he engaged in verbal spats with Skip Away trainer Sonny Hine and Hollywood Park management, and since he withdrew Silver Charm from a second million-dollar race, Baffert is taking some knocks from the once-fawning press.

``The act is growing old,'' columnist Bill Handleman of the Asbury Park (N.J.) Press wrote last week. ``No one believes a word Baffert says anymore.''

Handleman summed up the trainer's appeal this way.

``Bob Baffert may be perfectly in sync with these dramatically shallow times we live in. Not only that, he's smart enough to understand what it takes to become a master of his small universe. Which is why it seemed like he was holding a press conference every 15 minutes leading up to the (Kentucky) Derby,'' Handleman wrote.

A WEEK AT THE RACES 

Hollywood Park standings: Jockeys (through Wednesday): Corey Nakatani, 42 winners; Chris McCarron, 36; Garrett Gomez, 29; David Flores, 28; Laffit Pincay, 23. Trainers: Craig Dollase, 15; Bob Baffert, Neil Drysdale, Ron McAnally and Sandy Shulman, 14.

Handicapper helper: The team of McAnally and McCarron is the most potent at Hollywood Park with 10 winners in 27 races through last weekend. McAnally horses ridden by somebody else were just 3 for 29 at the meet.

Upcoming stakes: At Hollywood Park: $58,800 Ryafan, 3-year-old fillies, 1 1/16 miles on turf, tonight; $300,000 Beverly Hills Handicap, fillies and mares 3 and up, 1-1/4 miles on turf; $150,000 American Handicap, 3 and up, 1-1/8 miles on turf, and $78,000 Playa del Rey, 3-year-olds, 6 furlongs, Saturday; $100,000 Landaluce, 2-year-old fillies, 6 furlongs, Sunday. At Belmont Park: $350,000 Suburban Handicap, 3 and up, 1-1/4 miles, Saturday; $150,000 Tom Fool Handicap, 3 and up, 7 furlongs, Sunday. At Monmouth Park: $100,000 Molly Pitcher Handicap, fillies and mares 3 and up, 1 1/16 miles, Saturday.

Mileposts: Real Quiet worked 5 furlongs in :58 4/5, fastest of the morning at Santa Anita on Wednesday, and is aiming for the July 19 Swaps Stakes at Hollywood Park. Gary Stevens, likely to be Real Quiet's new jockey under an agreement to ride first call for the Bob Baffert barn, was aboard for the first time in the workout. . . . Victory Gallop, pointing for the Aug. 9 Haskell at Monmo`uth Park, went half a mile Monday at Churchill Downs in his first workout since he beat Real Quiet in the Belmont Stakes. . . . Silver Charm was back on the track for a gallop Monday at Santa Anita. Baffert said he'll use the July 25 San Diego Handicap at Del Mar as a prep for the Aug. 15 Pacific Classic. . . . Jockey Chris Antley is preparing for a comeback at Hollywood Park. . . . Thoroughbred Owners of California gave grants of $65,500 to the United Pegasus Foundation and $25,000 to the California Equine Retirement Foundation. Those are the state's leading horse-rescue organizations. . . . Jan, Mace and Samantha Siegel of Beverly Hills were the leading owners with 10 winners at the Churchill Downs meet that ended Sunday. . . . The Hollywood Gold Cup, the first event in the ESPN ``Racing to the Breeders' Cup'' series advertised as the ``most comprehensive'' yet, had to be covered on tape delay with a truncated show because a NASCAR race went long. The network will try it again 14 times between now and the Nov. 7 Breeders' Cup races at Churchill... Paddy Gallagher trained three winners Thursday. . . Pick-six carryover for tonight: $93,785.

- Kevin Modesti

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Box: A WEEK AT THE RACES (See Text)