Kindergarten Futurity at Los Alamitos : Schvaneveldt Tries to Beat Odds, Competition Again

Third is not a bad place to be. Third will get you a bronze medal, third pays off on a show bet.

But third place is not where you’d expect to find Blane Schvaneveldt, the trainer who has dominated quarter-horse racing for the past 14 years.

Since 1976, Schvaneveldt has won the training championship at every summer and winter meet at Los Alamitos Race Course, the sport’s No. 1 venue. The last man to beat him was D. Wayne Lukas.

Schvaneveldt, 54, has presented that unbeatable combination: an outstanding horseman with the largest barn of horses. If he didn’t beat you with quality he could beat you with quantity.

“Blane’s been like a tidal wave,” said Brad McKinzie, editor of Quarterweek magazine. “He just keeps coming. You might get close to him (in the standings) but then he’ll pull out five wins in a night.”

In the last weeks of last year’s summer meet, Schvaneveldt had to rally to overtake Bob Baffert for the training title.

As the midpoint of the summer season approaches, Schvaneveldt finds himself behind Baffert again. But he also is behind Caesar Dominguez, who leads the most recent training standings with 51 victories. Baffert has 45 victories, Schvaneveldt has 34.

Both Schvaneveldt and Baffert have two horses in tonight’s $329,000 Kindergarten Futurity. Schvaneveldt has Highs and Lows and To Toast, Baffert has Ourautograph, the favorite along with Marshall Ferrell’s Strawfly Special, and Debonair Kid.

It’s the top race for 2-year olds, competed at 350 yards. Schvaneveldt has won it a record four times. His horses have qualified near the middle of the pack for this year’s running, but as Schvaneveldt says, “I’ve won plenty of these things as the 10th qualifier.”

Yes he has. But as the challenge from others, especially Dominguez and Baffert, becomes more pronounced it must be asked whether times have changed or has Blane.

Some have speculated that he might be slowing down a bit. That after 14 straight years of being the best, the desire to to stay No. 1 becomes a bit tiresome. But Schvaneveldt balks at this.

“I want to be on top,” he said. “I always want to be on top. I’m not going to kill myself if I’m not on top, but I don’t like to be second in anything.”

Well, there’s the other theory that this is all part of the extended-equine process of natural selection.

“It’s a big cycle,” Dominguez said. “Blane’s been on top for so long, but when you’re on top there’s only one place to go, down. It’s like everything, new people move up, and now maybe it’s time for me and Baffert.”

There is much more than pride at stake. There is money. The leading trainer usually is the first one contacted by new, big-money, owners. If people are going to spend money they want to spend it on a winner.

For years, Schvaneveldt’s name has been the pat answer when any prospective owner asked for the best at the track.

“For the last 10 years, Blane has controlled the quarter-horse industry,” Dominguez said. “Any top owner or good horse that came in from out of the state would go to Blane. “The last two years, Baffert and I have started to get our share.”

Besides the new owners, there are veteran owners who are always looking to be with the right trainer.

One of the reasons Dominguez has been able to compete this year is that he has 110 horses in his barn. It’s the largest barn for Dominguez, who, in 17 years of training, has made a slow but steady climb to the top.

Dominguez’s best season came three years ago with 76 victories. Unfortunately for him, Schvaneveldt posted 96 that season. “He just overpowered me,” Dominguez said.

But now Dominguez has hooked up with owners, such as Bonifacio Rayas and Felipe Tiscareno, who are willing to spend the money and time to develop winners.

In the past four years, Schvaneveldt lost the three main owners from his barn when Ivan Ashment, Lowell Dillingham and B.F. Phillips died. “You don’t replace men like them,” Schvaneveldt said. “It’s hard to train horses, but it’s much harder to train owners.” “It’s amazing,” McKinzie said. “Here’s a guy who could have retired years ago and being sitting on his butt in Bermuda sipping a Pina Colada. But there he is, every morning at 4:30, out at his barn. I would bet you that if you ask Dominguez and Baffert who they’re most afraid of, they wouldn’t say each other, they’d say Blane because he’s always there.”