INGLEWOOD, Calif. (June 21, 2008) - Tiz West prevailed by a nose under jockey Victor Espinoza and then survived a claim of foul by Corey Nakatani aboard runner-up Ez Dreamer to win Saturday's $147,200 Cinema Handicap at Hollywood Park.
The son of Gone West came out on the backstretch and later drifted in the stretch, but the stewards did not penalize him for either incident.
"I told the stewards it's whatever it looks like," Espinoza said. "On the backstretch, the other horse (Ez Dreamer) outside of me really wanted to go, he was so aggressive. I was right on top of heels. I didn't want to choke him down and take him out of the race. I was in a dangerous spot and didn't want to get dropped myself. So I moved him a little to the outside. I don't think it cost the other horse anything."
Nakatani, obviously, had other thoughts.
"I took a pretty good whack down the backstretch," he said. "If it happened in the lane, they would have taken him down. It definitely cost me a placing. My horse got knocked completely off stride. If there's a complaint to be made, hopefully the owners will take care of it. It definitely altered the outcome of the race. I think I was on the best horse."
Tiz West, a homebred owned by Diamond A Racing, raced greenly in his last start, jumping shadows while finishing fourth behind one-two finishers Polonius and Ez Dreamer in the Will Rogers Stakes here in mid-May.
"He's getting a little more professional is the fact of the matter," trainer Richard Mandella said. "He has run enough times now he's learning how to start and stop and do things you usually have to do running on the turf. We figured that there would probably be one or two horses that would go and we would stick him on the inside. I told Victor (Espinoza) don't let that tie your hands and do what you think is best at all times. He did jump him into the race, maybe the horse took him, I don't know. Maybe it was to keep his mind on running instead of looking for those shadows coming around the corner again."
The victory in the Cinema was the second for Hall of Fame trainer Mandella, who saddled Bad 'N Big, his first major stakes winner, to capture the 1977 running.
Tiz West covered 1 1/8 miles on the Lakeside Turf Course in 1:47.24 to register his third win in seven starts. He paid $8, $3.80 and $2.60 as the third choice in the field of five 3-year-olds, banking $93,720 to raise his earnings to $219,348.
Ez Dreamer returned $5.40 and $2.80, while the show payoff on Liberian Freighter was $2.40. Favorite Polonius, aiming for a sweep of Hollywood Park's two graded turf stakes for 3-year-olds, finished fifth after setting the pace.
