LOS ALAMITOS : Harness Meet Off to Rousing Start

Lloyd Arnold sipped a cup of coffee and repeatedly clicked a ballpoint pen as he watched the start of the fourth race on television in the clubhouse Friday night at Los Alamitos Race Course.

“Look at ‘em leave; five across,” said the lean, balding track president and general manager as the starting gate pulled away. Arnold smiled approvingly as the first quarter of a mile was paced in a torrid 27 seconds, the half in a brisk :56 1/5, with the lead changing three times.

Riviera Hanover, a 6-year-old gelding, rallied to win the pace in 1:54 1/5, the fastest mile of the meet and only four-fifths of a second off the track record.

In the next race, Set to Go A, a 5-year-old mare, took the field to the half in :55 4/5 and the three-quarters in 1:24 4/5 to the oohs and ahs of the crowd. Admiral’s Rule N overtook her in the stretch for victory in 1:55 2/5, a track record for aged pacing mares.

“If you don’t like the racing we’ve got on the track now, you don’t like harness racing,” Arnold said. “You’ve never seen it so aggressive on the West Coast. The death seat is the No. 2 or No. 3 hole because everybody’s moving.

“I said we’d break 1:53, and everybody said, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah.’ I really believe it. I think we’ll have horses going 1:52 and a piece.”

Arnold credits the improved racing and the refurbishing of the facility as keys for the resurgence of harness racing this winter. Arnold, 61, is part of a group that bought the track for $72 million last year from the Hollywood Park Operating Company, the track’s owners since 1984.

After 36 programs of a 101-night meet, attendance at the track and at inter-track wagering sites is averaging 4,598, up 22% over last year. Overall handle is averaging $794,617, up 29%. On-track alone, attendance is averaging 3,011, up 25%, and the handle is averaging $531,185, up 24%.

“Drivers are here by invitation only,” Arnold said of a policy innovation. “We invited 45 and excluded about 82. We still have some rough spots with the system but the public wants the best. I think it’s going to become like the thoroughbreds, with separate trainers and jockeys. In this age, people want professionals.

“We went back East to add about 400 horses and targeted about 15 new drivers. The public tells me we’re not racing the same horses every week with the new eastern horses coming in. They all love the new drivers.”

Peter Wrenn, from Florida, and James Morand, from Maryland, have made the most immediate impact.

Arnold and three stewards study each race closely, trying to detect unsportsmanlike driving.

“We’ve had a couple of warnings,” Arnold said. “In one race, it looked like they were running interference. We called them in and said, ‘If that happens again, good night. You’re out on the street.’

“There are only two reasons we won’t succeed: if I don’t manage it right and if the drivers don’t give me 100%. If we get both, they can’t stop us. We’ll escalate farther than anybody believes.”

Arnold sees the return of several major races in 1991.

“I want to bring the Shelly Goudreau Memorial Pace for 3-year-olds back in the spring for $300,000-$500,000,” Arnold said. “In the fall, I want to bring back the American Pacing and Trotting Classics.

“For 1991, I’m asking the racing board for 10 weeks, starting in February, and 15 weeks from mid-August to mid-November. That’s like it used to be out here when harness racing was so good. I really like those second dates because the Meadowlands (in East Rutherford, N.J.) is closed then. You bet they’d come out for good purses.”

Arnold is betting that the pendulum will swing in the direction of harness growth in California after a decade of decline. He sees off-track betting across state borders in the near future and recently moved 16 mares from his Pennsylvania farm to be bred in California.

“Our California Sires Stakes will get some kind of good in the next two or three years,” he said.

Driver Rick Plano, a former high school wrestler, scored his greatest escape last Thursday. At the start of the $20,000 California Platinum Series for pacing mares, Plano felt the bit snap on the right side of Nero’s Honey.

Plano maneuvered the mare into third place along the rail and wondered how he would stop her. After three-eighths of a mile, he yelled “Equipment break!” to drivers Peter Wrenn and Steve Desomer in front of him. They pulled off the rail as announcer Joe Alto alerted the crowd and drivers to Plano’s predicament.

Plano rose in the sulky, grabbed the mare by her tail for balance, and slowly began to climb up her back. He inched his way forward, only to have his colors become caught in her equipment. He freed himself, continued forward toward her head, grabbed the bridle and brought her to a halt near the three-quarter pole as the field went around her without further incident. The mare never broke stride.

“The boys did a great job,” said Plano. “I just had the left line and couldn’t pull out. I was trapped. They moved off the rail, and I had a clear spot. I ruled out jumping because of the horses behind me.

“In 14 years of driving, I never had a line snap. I’ve never ridden a horse before and hope I never have to ride one again. It looked good on the reruns, like I knew what I was doing. I went down to the barn the next morning and gave her a big kiss.”

The pair will be reunited in the fifth race Thursday.

The incident revived memories of the death of star driver Shelly Goudreau in 1982 at Hollywood Park. He too had a broken line during a race but chose to bail out to his right side. He suffered fatal brain damage in hitting the track.

Harness Notes

Eight leading jockeys from Santa Anita will compete in a charity exhibition harness race Jan. 26 to benefit the Don MacBeth Memorial Fund for disabled jockeys. Chris McCarron, Laffit Pincay, Gary Stevens, Eddie Delahoussaye, Robbie Davis, Alex Solis, Corey Black and Ray Sibille will compete. Comedian Tim Conway is scheduled to serve as master of ceremonies. There will be four-horse heats after the second and third races, with the 1-2 finishers in each heat returning to the championship after the sixth. Los Alamitos will donate $10,000 to the fund.

Drivers Jim Todd and Steve Hyman, his son-in-law, kept family harmony by finishing in a dead-heat for first in the fourth race Friday with Wayward Son and Stingray N, respectively. Hyman, 34, is married to Todd’s daughter, Cassie. “He thought he won, and I thought he won,” said Hyman. “It was a pleasant surprise. Could 1:56 4/5 be a record for a dead-heat by a father and son-in-law?”

Till We Meet Again, the champion 2-year-old pacer in North America and winner of the Breeders’ Crown last year, is wintering at Los Alamitos with the Abe Stoltzfus stable and trainer Larry Rathbone. Rathbone said the colt has filled out “like a tank” but probably will not begin his sophomore campaign until after the Los Alamitos meet. Driver Rick Plano, after surviving his wild ride with Nero’s Honey Thursday, guided Riviera Hanover to victory in a season-best time of 1:54 1/5 the next night. Plano claimed the horse for $50,000 two races back after winning a shake. . . . Driver Marc Aubin has returned to Los Alamitos for the first time since 1984 after moving to Chicago. . . . Steve Desomer was forced to cancel the rest of his drives Saturday night when heavy rains hit the track. He has been wearing a cast to protect a broken finger the last two weeks and needed to keep it dry.

Gist and Divine Spirit, who share the track record of 2:01 4/5 for 2-year-old trotting fillies, head a field of eight Thursday in the featured $20,000 California Sires Stakes for 3-year-old filly trotters. . . . Driver Brian Allen, an Upstate New Yorker in his first season at Los Alamitos, is 0 for 43.