Rise N High Barred From Race at Los Alamitos

Owners of quarter horse Rise N High, a leading contender for this season’s world championship, lost an Orange County Superior Court appeal Tuesday to get their horse entered in the Z. Wayne Griffin Directors’ Handicap Saturday at Los Alamitos Race Course.

Owners Charles Albrecq and George Boskovich petitioned Thomas Keenan, Superior Court commissioner, to remove Rise N High from the Los Alamitos racing stewards’ list, which bars horses from racing.

Rise N High, a 4-year-old gelding, was put on the list after testing positive for stimulants 10 days after winning the $30,000 Inaugural Handicap Nov. 5, Albrecq said. He said the horse, who has won more than $500,000, had tested cleanly after going through the mandatory test immediately after the race. But when Rise N High’s trainer, Larry Kleve, had several other horses test positive later, course officials decided to test all the horses in Kleve’s barn.

“Our argument was that the horse had tested cleanly, and to test him again was a sort of double jeopardy,” Albrecq said.

Albrecq said Rise N High could be taken off the stewards’ list--and race Saturday--if he is put through a practice run and tests clean afterward. He also could be cleared Monday after a hearing between stewards and Kleve.

“We haven’t decided what we’re going to do,” Albrecq said. “That’s a lot of work to put a horse through before a race. But our racing in the Directors’ was on our racing schedule leading up to the Champion of Champions.”

Rise N High qualified for the $200,000 Champion of Champions Invitational December 14, the race which will decide the 1985 world championship.