LOS ALAMITOS : Heavy Tipper Keeps On Winning

Paul Blumenfeld’s 40-horse stable has competitors for virtually every level at Los Alamitos. The barn has its share of claimers, condition horses and stakes contenders who are on their way to giving Blumenfeld his second consecutive training title at the track.

None of the 40 horses, however, has had as much current success as Heavy Tipper, a multiple stakes-winning 3-year-old pacer, who has earned $78,350 this year by winning nine of 14 races.

Heavy Tipper won his sixth stakes last Saturday by a nose over Red Mountain Racer in the $25,000 California Sires Stakes for 3-year-old pacing colts and geldings. The race was a reversal of the previous week’s result, when Red Mountain Racer won by a nose. The time of 1:55 was also a track record for 3-year-old pacers. Blumenfeld also conditions Sherman, a contender for the July 4 Great Western Pace, who won the $20,000 New Beginnings Series Final on May 11.

Blumenfeld, 30, a native of Long Island, N.Y., won his first training title at Los Alamitos in the 1987-88 winter meeting after working several years for Roger Stein, now a thoroughbred trainer. Through June 15, Blumenfeld had 74 victories to second-place Robert Gordon’s 58.

“I have good owners and they want to win races,” Blumenfeld said. “They’re patient and they take the good with the bad, that’s rare. A lot of owners in this business--if they’d listen to their trainers, they’d do better. That’s not a knock on the owners, but the animals are not machines.”

The Blumenfeld stable will head north later this summer to Alberta for the Canada Circuit. Heavy Tipper will be pointed toward the $150,000 Nat Christie Memorial on Aug. 11 at Stampede Park in Calgary and the $200,000 Stewart Fraser Memorial Open Pace on Oct. 26 at Northlands Park in Edmonton.

Mercury returned to the Southland last week after a fruitless two-week journey to Ohio and Michigan, and wasted no time in reestablishing his presence as one of the top Los Alamitos-based pacers.

Friday Night, the 6-year-old Vance Hanover gelding broke the 1 1/4-mile world record for pacers on a five-eighths-mile track in 2:25 1/5 in the second leg of the Great Western Pace. Pack Leader had the old record of 2:27 3/5, set in 1988 at Los Alamitos.

The series will continue Friday night with the third leg, but without Mercury. Driver, trainer and co-owner Marc Aubin has decided to enter Mercury in Saturday’s $11,000 Invitational Handicap for pacers, instead of in the third leg of the Great Western Pace, an $8,000 race. Since Mercury won the second leg, he has already qualified for the $50,000 final July 4 at 1 5/8 miles. Aubin said Sunday that Mercury rebounded quickly from last Friday’s race.

“He came out super,” said Aubin, who owns Mercury with Carol and W.D. Whitlock. “He was playful this morning and was enjoying himself. (The victory) was pretty easy for him. The only thing I didn’t know about was the distance, but obviously he can go the distance.”

Mercury won the June 1 Invitational Handicap for pacers in easy fashion and was on a plane two days later for Ohio. He finished seventh in the Battle of Lake Erie at Northfield Park near Cleveland on June 8. A week later, he was sixth in the Lake Superior Invitational Pace at Hazel Park in suburban Detroit, after encountering trouble on the backstretch the second time around the half-mile track. Both races were against some of America’s top older pacers and carried $100,000 purses.

“You can’t come back from last (place) against those horses,” Aubin said. “He was three-wide in the last turn (at Hazel Park) and still came home in :28 3/5 (for the last quarter-mile). I was happy with him. He’s a good traveler.”

Mercury made his U.S. debut at Los Alamitos on March 16, and in 13 subsequent starts in Southern California has not been worse than third. His two out-of-town races were his only off-the-board performances.

After June 1, the Invitational Handicap has had three impressive performances from its winners. On June 8, Storm Prince paced the fastest mile of the Los Alamitos meeting, 1:53 1/5. On June 15, Vance Lobell returned from a one-week layoff to beat Storm Prince and Noble Hero in 1:55 2/5. Saturday, Noble Hero, who also won the $30,000 Fireball Final on June 8, beat Vance Lobell after a prolonged stretch battle in 1:54. All are expected to face Mercury this Saturday.

“It’ll be a tough event,” Aubin said. “Vance (Lobell) raced real big, and Noble Hero looks like a threat--no telling how fast he is.”

Without Mercury, the third leg of the Great Western Pace has drawn a field of eight, including first leg winner Runaway Groom. The 6-year-old New Zealand-bred gelding was second to Mercury last Saturday night. Others entered in Friday’s race include Captain Riki, Positron, Roan Spirit, Glenburn Star, Clever Dillon, Sherman and Parties Galore.

Like Mercury, Cool Charm Girl, an 8-year-old pacing mare, recently made an unsuccessful trip to the East but had no difficulty finding the winners’ circle at Los Alamitos.

Cool Charm Girl won last Friday’s Fillies and Mares Invitational Handicap in 1:57 2/5. The mare was driven by Tim Maier and is trained by his wife, Denise. Cool Charm Girl had three starts at Freehold Raceway in New Jersey last month but raced dismally in all three starts. She was ninth as the favorite in an elimination of the Guys and Dolls Pace on May 11 and was distanced on May 19 and 26 against fillies.

Bred in New Zealand, Cool Charm Girl has won six of 15 starts this year. She returned to Los Alamitos on June 14 after a brief layoff and finished second, after challenging for the lead, in the Fillies and Mares Invitational Handicap.

The poor performances in New Jersey concerned the Maier barn. “We turned her out (when she got back), and she came back just fine,” said Denise Maier, who has a 15-horse barn and is the leading female trainer at Los Alamitos. “We flew her both ways, and that’s expensive. She lost (a chance at) some easy races here. Sometimes you don’t always make the right decision.”

Maier also said her stable will race at Hazel Park later this year but Cool Charm Girl might not go. “She’s not as good as she was last year . . . she’s a little off her form,” said Maier, who added that the mare is sound and will race again next year.

Cool Charm Girl holds the track record for older mares, 1:54 4/5, set last October en route to being voted older mare of the 1990 summer/fall meeting.

Los Alamitos Notes

Attendance and mutuel handles are lagging with one month remaining in the harness racing season. The average on-track attendance is 2,993, down 0.2% from 1990, while the average overall attendance, including off-track locations, is 4,760, off 1.1% from last year. The mutuel handles have been mixed. The on-track average is $516,806, down 7.4%, but the overall average is $821,405, a 0.7% improvement. Officials had hoped to average $925,000 in average handle for the meeting.

Shiney Key, a 2-year-old pacer who began his racing career a month ago at Los Alamitos, lost his first race Sunday night at Buffalo Raceway in Hamburg, N.Y. Shiney Key, who has won three of four starts, was beaten by two lengths by Cocomo Son, a 39-1 shot, in an elimination race for the Hopeful Stakes. Shiney Key’s second-place finish did earn him a spot in the $200,000 final Sunday. Los Alamitos officials are hoping to simulcast the race at the end of the Sunday afternoon program.

Several stakes are scheduled during the next three nights. . . . Magic Moose, a 7-year-old trotter with a three-race winning streak, will head a field of five in the $11,000 Invitational Handicap Trot, tonight’s second race. The third race is a $20,000 California Sires Stakes for 2-year-old trotters that has drawn eight, including Mariahs Mystic, a stakes winner on June 19. The feature is the $28,200 California Breeders’ Championship for 3-year-old trotters. Mad Milton, winner of five in a row, will be the strong favorite.

Thursday will showcase two divisions of the $20,000 California Sires Stakes for 2-year-old trotting fillies. The featured eighth race will be the $30,700 California Breeders’ Championship for 3-year-old trotting fillies. The race drew a field of 12. . . . Pacing fillies will be spotlighted Friday. The 2-year-olds will race in $20,000 divisions, in the second and third races, while the 3-year-olds will be in the 12th race for a $27,200 purse.