LOS ALAMITOS : Longden a Winner in a Sulky, Too

Before eight of the leading jockeys at Santa Anita participate in a charity harness-racing exhibition at Los Alamitos Friday night, they might consult with Johnny Longden for driving tips.

Laffit Pincay, Chris McCarron, Eddie Delahoussaye, Gary Stevens, Robbie Davis, Alex Solis, Ray Sibille and Corey Black are scheduled to drive in the exhibition, for which Los Alamitos will donate $10,000 to the Don MacBeth Memorial Fund for disabled jockeys. Longden won 6,032 thoroughbred races. But he also won a harness race.

Longden, who will turn 83 on Feb. 14, can still be found most mornings at Santa Anita, training a couple of thoroughbreds and teaching the finer points of racetrack rummy in the stable kitchen.

“I used to ride under contract to Jim Fitzsimmons and Wheatley Stable in the ‘30s and ‘40s in the East,” Longden said. “When we raced at Saratoga, I started going to the harness races there at night.

“One night in New York, I went to Yonkers and saw a filly break down. I bought her and bred her.” The filly, Cindy Grattan, was bred to His Majesty and produced a colt Longden named Windy Scratton. “As soon as he was old enough to break, I brought him in to my ranch in Yerrington, Nev. It was windy as hell there.”

Windy Scratton turned into a respectable pacer, earning $18,337 from 1948-50 and once upsetting Gene Abbe at Yonkers. United States Trotting Assn. records show that Longden drove the horse to victory on Jan. 30, 1949, in a classified pace for a $500 purse at Phoenix.

“They had to put straps in the sulky where you put your feet because I couldn’t reach it,” Longden said.

“The trainer (Lee Spears) said to just sit in behind horses and move out on the backside. I did and he just paced on home and won off.

“It’s a little different than riding races if you haven’t been practicing. You’ve got to sit against them and hold them together against the bit. You’re not riding them.”

Longden owned one other harness horse in partnership with Hall of Fame trainer-driver Del Miller. “I met Del at a dinner one night and he said to go in with him and buy a filly,” said Longden. “I put it out of my mind until several months later when my wife found a bill in the mail and said, ‘Did you buy a trotter?’ I bought half of her, and luckily she turned out be a pretty good pacer.”

McCarron, Stevens and Solis will be the only jockeys at Los Alamitos without previous driving experience. Pincay, Delahoussaye, Sibille and Davis all have competed in similar jockey all-star races. Sibille has been in races at Sportsman’s Park and Maywood Park in Chicago and at Hollywood Park.

“I won the race at Maywood,” Sibille said. “I came from behind, but the trainers can’t really give us instructions because we don’t know what we’re doing anyway. Eddie (Delahoussaye) won one year at Hollywood Park in the early ‘80s.”

“I drove twice at Hollywood Park,” Pincay said. “I was second once. You have to have good position and be lucky too. It’s very hard to come through on the rail. In one race, my wheel touched another driver’s wheel. You can really feel it.”

Davis, who moved West from New York last year, drove in exhibitions at Saratoga and Monticello in 1988. “It sure is different sitting with your feet extended, and it’s confusing with the long buggy whip (knowing) how to hit them.

“I finished second both times to Oleg Cassini in celebrity races. They gave him an allowance horse and the rest of us claimers. . . . I said I didn’t want to do that any more unless I was at the draw. That wasn’t fair.”

Black has never driven in an exhibition but confessed to some unpublished works. “I remember riding in the cart with a friend when I was 11 at Brandywine (in Delaware),” Black said.

“Three or four years ago at Pomona, I helped train one morning. I drove a trotter around the wrong way once and drove a pacer in company with another horse.” Black, who was born in Westminster, might be the hometown favorite.

Few jockeys have gone on to careers as drivers. Manuel Ycaza gave the standardbred sport a brief try, winning six races in 49 drives in New York in 1977.

Four-horse heats are scheduled after the second and third races, with the first two in each returning for the final after the sixth.

Driver Gene Vallandingham came within three lengths of brushing against brother Billy near the eighth pole last week. That might not be news, except that Billy drives the mobile starting gate.

It happened last Tuesday in the $20,000 final of the Gold Pacing Series, which has been about as cursed as the Clippers. The race was postponed because of fog the previous week. This time there was a driving rainstorm, creating a slippery surface.

As the field was sent in motion, starter Larry Johns discovered a short in the battery that closes the wings of the gate. His only choice was to order the driver to gun the ’79 Lincoln clear.

Normally, the car angles to the outside fence, allows the field to pass and follows, with the starter watching as patrol judge. The car skidded and fishtailed perilously around the first turn, but the wings slowly closed as the field headed into the stretch the first time.

Vallandingham was sitting in third with favored Flight Strip after an eighth of a mile and considered moving to the lead. He thought better of it, however, when he saw the gate spin sharply in his direction. Flight Strip finished second to Absolute Gem, but Vallandingham refused to make excuses.

“I was still in a good spot, but the winner went a monster race,” Vallandingham said. “I got beat a half-length and wasn’t good enough.”

Vallandingham has seen worse starting-gate mishaps. “One night at Washington Park in Chicago, the gate didn’t close, went right through the fence and landed in the grandstand,” he said.

Harness Notes

Veteran driver Jim Todd, enjoying one of his best meets, appears to have the genuine article in Power and Glory N. The 7-year-old New Zealand-bred gelding won an $15,000 invitational pace Saturday in 1:53 4/5, fastest mile of the meet and only two-fifths of a second off the track record. Power and Glory N led all the way, with fractions of :27 1/5, :56 2/5 and 1:25 2/5, drawing off at the top of the stretch with something left. He has won five of six starts at Los Alamitos since Todd purchased him last year for $20,000 from Andy Perez.

Jim Grundy gave Thadrow a perfect drive in helping him establish a track record of 1:58 2/5 for 4-year-old trotting horses in a $15,000 invitational trot Saturday. Grundy sat second most of the way before coming out at the head of the lane and catching Alfa Star at the wire.

Driver Lou Pena will complete a five-day suspension for interference Saturday, his third infraction or violation during a three-day period earlier this month. In the 10th race Jan. 11, Pena came off the rail at the three-eighths pole with Sure Sign N, impeding the progress of Gee Gee Jade. He served a three-day suspension Jan. 18-20 for another infraction on the same card. On Jan. 13, Pena was fined $100 for failure to set and maintain a pace comparable to the class of the horse in the 12th race on Intermission N.

Driver Tim Brown, in his first Los Alamitos race since arriving from British Columbia Thursday, drove Arran Gem in the ninth race and crossed the wire second. Brown, however, altered course abruptly near the finish, impeding the progress of Summertime Sue N, and was disqualified and placed fourth. He will begin a five-day suspension Thursday.

The total handle of $1,258,873 Friday night was the high of the meet.