State Board Fires Two Veteran Stewards : Horse racing: They will be replaced by what are believed to be state’s first women to serve in that capacity at major tracks.

The California Horse Racing Board announced Monday that it is firing two stewards with 45 years of experience between them and replacing them with what are believed to be the first women to serve as racing judges at major thoroughbred race tracks in California.

Dennis Hutcheson, executive secretary of the racing board, said that Hubert Jones and Leon Lewis will be dismissed after the race meetings that they are currently working. Jones is part of the three-steward panel at Santa Anita, where the season ends April 22, and Lewis is a racing judge at Golden Gate Fields, which closes its meeting June 24.

Jones’ replacement, starting at Hollywood Park April 24, is Ingrid Fermin, 49, who has been the medication steward at Santa Anita since 1989 and before that worked as a racing steward at fairs and quarter horse meets in California.

Lewis’ replacement, starting at the Bay Meadows fair in September, is Sheila Gaudreau, 60, former clerk of the course at Santa Anita before she worked as a steward at several Midwestern tracks in the 1980s.

Experienced stewards are paid $375 per racing day and $550 per racing day on Sundays and holidays.

Jones, 63, is a former jockey who has been a steward for 20 years. At Hollywood Park in 1984, he was one of the three stewards who had to sort out the three-horse, head-to-head finish of the Breeders’ Cup Classic, racing’s first $3-million race. Lewis, 61, has been a steward at Bay Area tracks for 25 years.

Both men were at the meeting of the racing board’s stewards’ committee Monday, when they were told that they would not be rehired. Jones had said Feb. 23 that Hutcheson had advised him his last day of work would be Sunday, but Hutcheson said Monday that Jones would complete the Santa Anita meeting “in the best interests of racing.”

Said Hutcheson of the dismissals: “The board needs to evaluate stewards regularly to assure the public that racing officials are doing their jobs, and we haven’t been doing that. A good steward should be fair, consistent and use good judgment.”

On Feb. 23, Jones said that Hutcheson had told him the racing board was unhappy with the way he handled last year’s Del Mar Derby. The horse who won the race, Tight Spot, was disqualified for interference by Jones and two other stewards, but upon appeal by Tight Spot’s owners, a board-appointed hearing referee overruled the stewards and let the original order of finish stand.

Monday, Hutcheson said he had not mentioned the Del Mar Derby to Jones.

“This has nothing to do with the Del Mar Derby,” Hutcheson said. “I didn’t tell him what he said I said. If this had anything to do with the Del Mar Derby, we would have been looking at all three stewards who were involved.”

Lewis said he was told by the committee that he was in conflict of interest because of a horse farm he and his wife run in Vacaville.

“I’ve had the farm eight or nine years, so why is it in conflict now?” Lewis said. “. . . We don’t board horses that are running in races, we board mostly broodmares.”

Another Golden Gate steward, Charles Dougherty, 71, told the board Monday that he would retire if he were allowed to work through the end of the year. That request was approved.

Some trainers at Santa Anita are upset by the dismissal of Jones.

“We’re just interested in some input when these things are done,” said Conrad Klein, an attorney representing the trainers.