THOROUGHBRED RACING : Victory Costs Trainer Everything

Last November, the day before Thanksgiving, trainer Tommy Richardson ran the only horse in his barn in a $12,500 claiming race at Hollywood Park.

Fracoza, a 7-year-old gelding, went wire to wire for a 1 3/4-length victory. He paid $9.20 to win and earned a purse of $6,050 for Richardson, who also owned the California-bred.

Fracoza, running his 53rd race, hadn’t won since 1988, but he was a short price in a small field because this wasn’t exactly a group of Breeders’ Cup horses. The favorite had won two races in two years and there was another horse in the race that had won only once.

But Richardson, 74, has come to rue the day that Fracoza won that race. The horse’s postrace urine test came back positive for cocaine, implicating Richardson in another California epidemic of the drug that has touched 15 other trainers.

The other day, after prolonged hearings with the Santa Anita stewards, Richardson was fined $1,000, put on probation for the rest of the year and given a suspended sentence of 90 days away from the track. Other than the money, the rest of the penalty is academic, because Richardson now has one fewer horse than he had the day he ran Fracoza.

Richardson said Thursday that he is appealing the stewards’ ruling to the California Horse Racing Board.

“The stewards kept telling me how nice they were being to me,” he said. “But in other words, they’re telling me I’m guilty of giving a horse cocaine. It’s a slap in the face. I’ve been around the race track since 1929 and I’ve never been guilty of anything.”

The English-born Richardson’s first memory of a North American track is Polo Park in Manitoba, Canada, where a young Johnny Longden was winning virtually all the races. After a career as a jockey, Richardson broke into training in the Pacific Northwest in the 1940s.

For years, Richardson has been called “Father Thomas” by a trainer friend. While not campaigning for sainthood, Richardson says: “I’m the kind of guy that the Pope would use to go to confession.”

Richardson said that Fracoza was 7-2 on the morning line the day he ran.

“And that’s what he went off at,” the trainer said. “There was no (betting) coup on this race.”

Richardson has lost the purse--he’s been ordered to pay back the $6,050 so that it can be given to the owner of the horse that finished second to Fracoza--but he has kept a sense of humor.

“I won’t make the Hall of Fame, but I’ll make the Hall of Cocaine,” he jokingly said a few weeks ago, when it appeared that charges against him might be dropped, as they have against two of the other trainers, and as they were against five trainers, among them Wayne Lukas and Laz Barrera, when their horses tested positive for cocaine in 1989.

Lukas and Barrera have said that they spent more than $100,000 apiece in legal costs to fight their cases.

“It’s too bad what they’re trying to do to Tommy Richardson,” trainer Charlie Whittingham said. “He doesn’t have the money to pay for a lot of legal fees.”

Richardson has already paid for a second laboratory opinion on Fracoza’s urine sample, which cost about $1,000.

“It was still positive,” Richardson said. “But the lab said that there was only 91/1,000,000 of a trace. There were enough things going on around the barn to account for that.”

Richardson said that before Fracoza ran, a groom who was seen urinating in the horse’s stall tested positive for cocaine and marijuana and a white powder was found among the groom’s belongings in the tack room.

Richardson appears to have been victimized by racing’s controversial absolute-insurer rule, which makes the trainer responsible for his horse 24 hours a day.

John Russell, another trainer who is battling a cocaine accusation, says that the rule is unrealistic, if for no other reason than that the trainer is separated from his horse for lengthy periods on a day the horse runs.

When the reality of the fine sank in, Richardson’s ready wit turned to gallows humor.

“This has been harder on my wife than anybody,” he said. “The only good thing I could have done last year was to die early.”

Richardson didn’t run Fracoza again at Hollywood Park because he was fearful of another positive test. The horse was training for a race at the start of the Santa Anita season when he suffered a leg injury.

“I was hoping somebody would claim him if I could have gotten him in that Santa Anita race,” Richardson said. “I just gave him away after that. He’s won almost $200,000. I’ll bet he comes back and wins some more races for somebody some day.”

Gulfstream Park has been rewarded for the good job it did in 1989 by getting another opportunity to hold the Breeders’ Cup races in 1992.

The Breeders’ Cup made the announcement Thursday. The seven races worth $10 million will be run at the Hallandale, Fla., track Oct. 31, 1992.

Despite the constraints of a small plant, Gulfstream’s 1989 Breeders’ Cup drew 51,342 fans, a Florida attendance record, and there were few spectator complaints.

This year’s Breeders’ Cup is scheduled for Nov. 2 at Churchill Downs, which held the races in 1988.

Of the other Breeders’ Cups, two have been in New York and three in California, which hasn’t had the series since 1987. R.D. Hubbard, the new president of Hollywood Park, is expected to make a pitch for the Breeders’ Cup at his track in 1993. Santa Anita came close to getting the 1992 Breeders’ Cup, but negotiations broke off late last year.

“Three of the first four Breeders’ Cups were held in California, so they are overdue to get another one,” said Ted Bassett, president of the Breeders’ Cup. “Hollywood Park will certainly get some consideration, but there may be some sentiment on our board to put together something with Santa Anita again, because Hollywood has already had two of the three California Breeders’ Cups.”

Horse Racing Notes

More than five inches of rain has hit Santa Anita in the last two days, making a fast track virtually impossible for the rest of the week. . . . Trainer Charlie Whittingham, who is expected to enter two of his three top 3-year-olds in Sunday’s San Rafael Stakes has entered two of them--Excavate and Compelling Sound--in a 1 1/16-mile allowance Saturday. Since Compelling Sound has already won at that distance, it wouldn’t seem likely that he would be backed up to only a mile, which is the San Rafael distance. Whittingham’s other San Rafael probable is River Traffic.

Nine sprinters, among them Olympic Prospect and Lee’s Tanthem, are entered for Saturday’s 5 1/2-furlong El Conejo Handicap. Olympic Prospect has been assigned high weight of 122, five pounds more than Lee’s Tanthem. . . . Hollywood Park, expected to get approval from the racing board, will run the last six Fridays of the coming meet at night. Horsemen have already approved the schedule. There were dramatic increases in attendance and handle when Hollywood ran four Fridays at night last year. Hollywood’s season opens on April 24.