Willow O Wisp tries to get back on track

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Willow O Wisp rose to prominence at the 2005 Hollywood Park spring-summer meeting, posting the first stakes win of his career.

Saturday, the 4-year-old returns to Hollywood Park, where he will try to end a three-race losing streak in the $100,000 Inglewood Handicap, a 1 1/16-mile turf race.

Last year at Hollywood, Willow O Wisp finished second in the Grade 3 Will Rogers Stakes in May and returned a month later to win the Grade 3 Cinema Breeders' Cup Handicap. Willow O Wisp later won the La Jolla Handicap at Del Mar and the Del Mar Derby.

Willow O Wisp's losing streak includes a ninth in the Hong Kong Cup in December, and a seventh in the Grade 1 Frank Kilroe Mile at Santa Anita in March.

In the Kilroe Mile, Willow O Wisp led to the eighth pole and finished 1 1/2 lengths behind race winner Milk It Mick.

"The shape of the race didn't suit him," said trainer Vladimir Cerin. Cerin said he would like the pace in the Inglewood to be slower than it was in the Kilroe, when Willow o Wisp ran the first half-mile in 46.58 seconds.

"If he can go in 47, I think he can finish better," Cerin said. "He's really training well. In retrospect, it was a mistake to take him to Hong Kong. It really fried his brain. I'd like to see a big race out of him."

Willow O Wisp, owned by Robert Alexander, drew post 4 in a field of eight. The race has a strong field, including , who won the Thunder Road Handicap at Santa Anita in February and was 11th in the Kilroe Mile.

Prospect Park, an expected runner in the Inglewood, was not entered by trainer Richard Mandella.

The race does include two recent imports who were group stakes winners - Narrative and New Export.

Narrative, trained by Cerin, was a Group 2 winner in Italy in 2002, but has lost his last 11 starts. He has not started since finishing 18th of 21 in a handicap at York, England, in July 2004.

New Export, trained by Bobby Frankel, won two Group 1 races in Brazil in early 2005. New Export has won at distances ranging from about 5 1/2 furlongs to 1 1/4 miles.