The Hollywood Gold Cup: Endangered race has a legendary history

July 11, 11:24 PMHorse Racing ExaminerRobin Bush

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Rail Trip becomes the 70th, and possibly last, Hollywood Gold
Cup winner.           AP Photo/Benoit Photos 

It appears that this year’s 70th edition of the prestigious Hollywood Gold Cup, won by Rail Trip, may be the race’s final curtain call. All systems are go for the gorgeous Inglewood, CA track to be demolished next year to make way for mostly homes, retail and business space, and a hotel. For most race fans, it will be a heart-wrenching end to one of America’s foremost tracks for last seventy-one years. As the Gold Cup, its signature event, may have signed off Saturday, let’s take a look at some of the horses and people that have helped establish it as one of the country’s most historic races.

From Seabiscuit’s handy win in the inaugural Gold Cup in 1938, to Lava Man’s three consecutive victories on two different surfaces from 2005-07, the Gold Cup has attracted the nation’s very best horses. Interestingly, California racing was basically scoffed at by Eastern horsemen in the late 1930s when Hollywood Park opened. The country’s elite meets and races were held in the eastern half of the U.S., and the best horses were born and raced there. But when three southern California racetracks—Santa Anita, Del Mar, and Hollywood Park—opened in quick succession between 1934 and 1938, it wasn’t long before the Golden State became a major hub for top Thoroughbred racing. The tracks enjoyed outstanding turnout and plentiful wagering, attractive purses, and the added allure of Hollywood’s most recognizable faces, such as Bing Crosby, Irene Dunne, Ava Gardner, and Clark Gable.

A marble monument commemorates the winners
of the Hollywood Gold Cup           Photo by Dave 

Seabiscuit really jump-started Eastern respect for California’s racing programs and horses. He staged multiple successful assaults on the East’s biggest races, and thrashed the Eastern darling War Admiral in the famous 1938 match race the year he won the first Gold Cup. Although he was based in California and had to overcome the significant Eastern bias when championship voting time came, he was honored as the 1938 Horse of the Year.

With Seabiscuit drawing attention to the ever-growing quality and competitiveness of California racing, plus the juicy purses, Eastern horses began making forays to the state for its major races. In just its third year, the Hollywood Gold Cup attracted Challedon, the 1939 Horse of the Year. The colt took the race going away, en route to his second Horse of the Year title.

Noor, from the stable of Seabiscuit’s owner Charles S. Howard, became famous for developing a rivalry with the great Citation, the 1948 Triple Crown winner. Citation, not the same horse after returning from an injury that kept him out of competition for all of 1950, was gotten the better of by Noor in four consecutive California races. Citation did not run in the 1950 Hollywood Gold Cup, however, which Noor won over a solid field in his final start. He took champion handicap male honors that year.

Although in 1950 and 1951 Citation was only a shade of his former self, a shade of Citation was still a fearsome rival. By the summer of 1951, Citation was poised to become racing’s first millionaire, and Calumet Farm kept him on the track specifically to accomplish that feat. “Big Cy” actually proved more consistent in the final races of his career, winning his last three. As if he knew that becoming a millionaire in the ’51 Hollywood Gold Cup would mean his final hurrah, the great horse was spectacular that day, harkening to his glory days in which he was considered by some to be the greatest horse in history. Achieving yet another record by going over the million-dollar mark, his emotional four-length victory was Citation’s grand farewell to the fans.

The years 1956-1958 each saw Hollywood Gold Cup winners that were among the greatest of the century, and each was piloted by the great Willie Shoemaker in the race. Kentucky Derby winner Swaps was one of the most brilliant racehorses in history. In 1956 alone, he broke or equaled seven track, American, and world records, carrying at least 130 pounds in most of them. In the Hollywood Gold Cup, he set a 1 ¼-mile track record of 1:58 3/5.

Round Table, the first three-year-old to win the race, actually equaled Swaps’ time the next year in an easy 3 ¼-length win. A member of the sensational sophomore crop of 1957 that included the greats Bold Ruler and Gallant Man, Round Table defeated older horses for the first time in the Gold Cup. He proved extremely durable and consistent, winning 43 of 66 races and finishing in the money 56 times. He could win on dirt or turf, long or short. The son of Princequillo was a three-time grass champion, 1958 handicap champ, and 1958’s Horse of the Year. He also earned champion handicap male honors in the Thoroughbred Racing Association’s 1959 poll.

Gallant Man, one of the best horses never to be named a champion, shipped west for the 1958 Gold Cup. Though Shoemaker had to work him hard, the colt fought out a half-length victory under 130 pounds.

Native Diver’s name has become synonymous with the Gold Cup. With three straight victories in the race from 1965 to 1967, the event cemented his status as a California legend. Though he won many important stakes in California, this race simply belonged to him. He took each of his Gold Cups by at least 4 ¾ lengths.

In the 1970s, the race belonged to a trainer. The legendary Charlie Whittingham saddled fully half the decade’s ten Gold Cup winners, including four straight from 1971 to 1974—with the great ’71 Horse of the Year, champion handicap horse, and champion sprinter Ack Ack, three-year-old Quack in ‘72; Canadian champion Kennedy Road (who nosed out his stablemate Quack) in 1973; and Tree of Knowledge. Whittingham also trained the ultra-tough Exceller to a thrilling 1978 Gold Cup win over Text. The tremendously talented horse won Grade I races in four countries, on turf and dirt, and defeated two Triple Crown winners in Seattle Slew and Affirmed. Shoemaker rode four of these five winners—all except Quack. In all, Shoemaker won eight Hollywood Gold Cups—five of them for “the Bald Eagle.” Whittingham holds the trainers’ record for most wins in the race, with eight. He saddled three in the 1980s, including Kentucky Derby winner and 1987 Horse of the Year Ferdinand.

Meanwhile, Affirmed won the final Gold Cup of the 1970s. With his hard-fought head victory, the last Triple Crown winner became the first horse to earn $2 million. Laffit Pincay, Jr. rode the great horse that day for his fourth of a record nine Gold Cup wins.

In possibly the most memorable Gold Cup of the 1980s, Cutlass Reality pulled off a remarkable upset. He ran away with the 1988 edition by 6 ½ lengths, besting two Kentucky Derby winners. Alysheba, well clear of Ferdinand for second, was the previous year’s champion three-year-old and Derby hero, and would be named the 1988 Horse of the Year. Ferdinand, the 1986 Derby winner, was the defending Horse of the Year and Hollywood Gold Cup champ. But neither of them could come close to the surprising Cutlass Reality that day.

The 1990s began with a bang for the Cup. In 1990, Sunday Silence, the previous year’s Derby and Preakness winner, Breeders’ Cup Classic victor, and Horse of the Year, took part in a spectacular duel with the Wayne Lukas-trained Criminal Type. Criminal Type, already a winner of two straight Grade I stakes, was in his best lifetime form. Sunday Silence had just won his seasonal debut, the Grade 1 Californian. After six furlongs, both horses pounced on the leader Ruhlmann. They moved as one, with Criminal Type near the rail and Sunday Silence harassing him to the outside. The Derby winner briefly pushed his nose in front early in the stretch, but the chestnut Calumet runner was every bit as game. Criminal Type dug down, thrust his own nose back ahead, and maintained a head advantage to the line. It was one of the race’s most thrilling finishes.

The mid- to late 1990s saw several hard-knocking Gold Cup winners that always seemed to show up ready for their best in the country’s top races. Best Pal, who became the leading California-bred in history and was one of the darlings of racing nationwide, bested Bertrando in the 1993 Gold Cup, to add to his 1991 Pacific Classic and 1992 Santa Anita Handicap wins. Siphon and Gentlemen, two South America-breds trained by Dick Mandella, always seemed to be at the top in California’s big races. They each handily won a Gold Cup—Siphon in 1996 and Gentlemen in 1997. Skip Away, possibly the best handicap horse of the ‘90s apart from Cigar and a champion in three consecutive years, took the 1998 Gold Cup. And, of course, the mighty Cigar shipped west for the event in the midst of a sensational 16-race winning streak, and dismantled an impressive field by 3 ½ lengths for his ninth straight victory.

More recently, Lava Man joined Native Diver as the only winner of multiple Gold Cups. Interestingly, the only repeat winners have actually won three each. Lava Man toyed with the 2005 Gold Cup field, then won the next year’s edition by just a nose. In 2007, with the race on Hollywood Park’s new Cushion Track surface for the first time, Lava Man again eked out a victory, this time by a head.

Many other winners of the race deserve mention—Kayak II, Two Lea, Ancient Title, Real Quiet, and Congaree, and George Woolf, Jerry Bailey, and Bobby Frankel, among others, are also important names in the race’s celebrated history. Now, Rail Trip has become possibly the final winner of this great event. Perhaps the Gold Cup will be reincarnated at another venue, likely with a new name. But whatever happens, when the Hollywood Gold Cup is no longer contested at this historic track that has been the site of so many legendary performances, racing will suffer yet another sad blow.

For more info: 

Hollywood Park history

Major moments in Hollywood Park history

Del Mar Thoroughbred Club history

List of Hollywood Gold Cup winners