Horse Racing : Pat Valenzuela Is Facing Indefinite Suspension

The stewards at Santa Anita are expected to issue a ruling today that will suspend troubled jockey Pat Valenzuela indefinitely.

Under racing’s reciprocity rule, Valenzuela will be prohibited from riding at any track in the United States.

Valenzuela, one of the leading jockeys at Santa Anita this season, didn’t show up to ride March 2 without notifying his agent or the stewards, and hasn’t ridden since.

The stewards ordered Valenzuela to meet with them Thursday. Late Wednesday, however, Valenzuela called and said he wouldn’t be able to appear because he had business in New Mexico.

According to the stewards, Valenzuela said he won’t be riding for a month to six weeks because he is not in the proper frame of mind.

The 25-year-old Valenzuela has been missing from the track a number of times in recent years, including three times this season at Santa Anita.

In numerous state drug tests, Valenzuela has always come up clean. The Times has learned, however, that he once told racing officials that he had drug and alcohol problems dating back to the early 1980s. Valenzuela reportedly entered a rehabilitation facility in Minnesota a few years ago, and on at least two occasions he has undergone treatment at Centinela Hospital Medical Center in Inglewood.

Valenzuela, who is separated from his wife, is fifth in the current Santa Anita standings with 28 wins, having ridden far fewer races than the jockeys ahead of him.

The son of a jockey and the nephew of three riders, Valenzuela rode 83 winners at Santa Anita in 1980, a record for an apprentice that still stands. He has won some of California’s biggest races, including the Santa Anita Derby on Codex, the Santa Anita Handicap on Interco, the Strub Stakes on both Swing Till Dawn and Snow Chief, the San Juan Capistrano on Obraztsovy, and the Vanity on No Robbery.

Valenzuela won Breeders’ Cup races with Brave Raj and Very Subtle, took the Arkansas Derby with Althea and the Kentucky Oaks with Fran’s Valentine.

In 1986, Valenzuela ranked seventh on the national money list when his mounts earned $7.1 million. He has ranked in the top 10 in purses four times.

“Pat will have to see us before this suspension is lifted,” said Pete Pedersen, a Santa Anita steward. “And when that happens, we’re going to have to cover a lot of ground rules before he’s allowed to ride again.”

Last year, racing’s handicap division was the weakest in years. Ferdinand and Broad Brush were the top horses, even though they lost more races than they won, and good but hardly spectacular horses such as Creme Fraiche and Nostalgia’s Star were able to bank large amounts simply because the competition was so thin.

This year, the handicap division may be one of the strongest in some time, mainly because there are so many holdovers from the outstanding 3-year-old crop of 1987.

Two horses from that group--Lost Code and Bet Twice--made their first moves toward anticipated bigger things at Florida’s Gulfstream Park last weekend.

Lost Code, who had been sidelined since surgery for a bone chip last October, returned to action and ran seven furlongs in 1:21 1/5, missing the 17-year-old Gulfstream record by two-fifths of a second. He won by 15 1/2 lengths.

Bet Twice, last year’s Belmont Stakes winner who was second to Alysheba in both the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness, breezed for the first time on the morning of Lost Code’s race.

Before Davie’s Lamb won the Buena Vista Handicap last Saturday at Santa Anita, his owner, Fred Rohrs, who has been hospitalized after suffering a stroke, argued unsuccessfully with his doctor about going to the track for an hour to watch the race.

At Gulfstream Park last week, Dave Feldman, the Chicago Sun-Times’ turf reporter, who also trains horses, was taken to the hospital with pneumonia. Fern Feldman, his wife, was in tears as she talked on the phone with a track official. Feldman also has a heart condition.

But while his wife was talking to Gulfstream, Feldman was on another hospital phone, giving instructions to one of his riders in the jockeys’ room.

Said Tommy Trotter, the director of racing at Gulfstream: “The thing I can’t figure out is how does a guy get to a telephone when he’s in intensive care?”

When John Lenzini was visiting his son, Butch, who trains at Aqueduct, he was appalled by the large number of pigeons in the stable area.

“Shortly after that, I was visiting a plantation in the South,” the elder Lenzini said. “Somebody there told me that the way to keep pigeons away was to get a few owls. So I told Butch that that’s what to do at Aqueduct.”

Butch Lenzini then said to his dad: “We’ve tried that. But the pigeons here are so big that they ride the owls.”

Horse Racing Notes

Demons Begone, who bled as the favorite in last year’s Kentucky Derby and then had only one more start, finishing fifth in the Ohio Derby, makes his first appearance as a 4-year-old in an allowance race today at Oaklawn Park. . . . Trainer Bert Sonnier says that Chris McCarron will ride Firery Ensign if he runs in the Lexington Stakes at Keeneland April 16. Another possible race for the Kentucky Derby candidate is the Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland April 28.

Former jockey Eddie Arcaro, who was hospitalized with recurrent heart trouble recently, and then lost his wife when she suffered an aneurysm, is playing golf again and attended the Florida Derby.