LOS ALAMITOS : Big Chance for Trainer Monteleone

In less than 18 seconds Saturday night, Corona Chick will have an opportunity to change trainer Frank Monteleone’s image from a claiming trainer to a stakes trainer.

The 2-year-old quarter horse filly is the fastest qualifier for the $150,000 Governors Cup Futurity at the Orange County Racing Fair after posting a qualifying time of 17.73 seconds in the trials Aug. 6.

Corona Chick, who has won three of five starts, was Monteleone’s leading 2-year-old this summer at Bay Meadows in San Mateo, Calif., where the 42-year-old trainer won his first training title, beating Caesar Dominguez and Blane Schvaneveldt. Corona Chick was also fifth in her only stakes appearance, the $224,500 Bay Meadows Futurity on July 13.

“I knew she could run and I thought she’d like this race track,” said Monteleone who, in 11 years of training has never won a Los Alamitos futurity. “This is the first time we’ve had (a stable of) horses that had a legitimate shot of getting in (the big futurities), the first opportunity to do some good.”

Monteleone trains the filly for Robert Etchandy of Anaheim Hills, and has a stable of 25 horses at Los Alamitos and the Pegasus Ranch in Murrieta, where Corona Chick is currently based.

“She’s a nervous filly and has got to have something to look at, so I shipped her back to the ranch,” Monteleone said. “It’s a more relaxed environment there. Right now, anything she wants, she can have.”

Monteleone is having his best year. He finished the 1990-91 Los Alamitos season sixth in the trainers’ standings, but opened the Bay Meadows season on May 17 with four victories. He won the training title with 31 victories in 116 starts, three more victories than Dominguez and four more than Schvaneveldt.

“No doubt about it, we’ve tried to change that stigma,” he said. “My standpoint is taking a horse, patching it up and getting it to run well.”

Saturday’s futurity, which is the richest race of the Orange County Fair, has no stakes winners but does have several contenders. Almost Illegal, who was second to Ed Grimley in the Bay Meadows Futurity, is the third-fastest qualifier. Sir Austin Duncan, who was sixth at Bay Meadows, is the Governors Cup’s sixth-fastest qualifier.

Jockey Steve Treasure, who has been aboard Almost Illegal in all four of her starts, said that if the filly could break sharper, her chances of winning a major futurity would improve.

“She’s a good filly if she’d ever get her stuff together,” he said. “I know she can run on the front end and one night she will.”

The quarter horse futurity shared the closing-night spotlight with the $50,000 Orange County Handicap at 1 1/16 miles. The 120-pound high weight is Jovial, who ran fifth in the May 12 John Henry Handicap at Hollywood park and is winless in three starts this year.

If entered, he will tote two pounds more than Annual Date, who was weighted at 118 and won two stakes races in Canada earlier this year.

Bruce Jackson, who trains Jovial, is no stranger to Los Alamitos. He trained quarter horses there in the 1980s, and scored a victory in the 1983 $853,380 Faberge Futurity with Indigo Illusion.

Trainer David La Croix swept both stakes for 3-year-old thoroughbreds at this year’s fair, winning last Saturday’s $49,840 Orange County Derby with Pillaring.

The colt, who is owned by Meadowbrook Farm, was ridden by Adalberto Lopez and ran the 1 1/16 miles in 1:41 3/5, the fastest at this meeting. The victory broke a string of four fourth-place stakes finishes for Pillaring, who has won three of 16 starts. Since April 13, he has been fourth in the California Derby and Gold Rush Handicap at Golden Gate Fields and the Silver Screen Handicap and Swaps Stakes at Hollywood Park.

Pillaring finished behind Best Pal in the Swaps and second behind Best Pal in last year’s Del Mar Futurity and Norfolk Stakes.

“It seems he always ran second or fourth to Best Pal,” said Lopez, who also rode Haunting for La Croix in the Walter Knott Stakes on Aug. 2, the trainer’s first stakes victory of the meeting.

Saturday night, Pillaring ran behind the pace-setting Renegotiable for the first six furlongs, then moved by impressively in the final turn for a two-length victory. Renegotiable held on for second, and He’s On Alert finished third. Honkytonk Blaze, Ken’s Big Fogarty and Hooley Mooses also ran.

The Derby undercard featured the $25,000 Gold Coast Express Invitational Handicap for older quarter horses at 400 yards. Winning Guarantee, a 5-year-old mare, beat the boys for her first stakes victory since the Temecula Handicap at Los Alamitos last Dec. 15.

Winning Guarantee, who has won 10 of 29 starts, is trained by Dominguez and was ridden by Joe Meier for owner Alfonso Gonzalez.

Ocean Native remained unbeaten after two starts with a victory in Monday’s $35,720 Saddleback Stakes for 2-year-olds.

The Mexico-bred colt won the 4 1/2-furlong race by three lengths in 50 1/5 seconds, two-fifths of a second faster than last year’s running, when the race was first run at the current distance.

Ocean Native, trained by Alfredo Marquez, won his first race at Del Mar on July 31 in a $50,000 maiden claiming race by 11 lengths under jockey Kent Desormeaux. The jockey was back in the irons on Monday night and brought Ocean Native from just off the pace for the victory.

“I was a little concerned the first three-eighths (of a mile),” said Desormeaux, who won the Eclipse Award as an apprentice jockey in 1987 and as a journeyman in 1989. “His class prevailed.”

Flight Call, who also broke his maiden recently at Del Mar was second, and Rowd E. Companion, a maiden winner at Solano, finished third.

Los Alamitos Notes

Both the jockey and trainer races are heating up. Through Monday night, Adalberto Lopez and Hector Torres were tied atop the jockey standings with 21 victories apiece. Antonio Castanon was third with 13 victories. Juan Garcia and Alfredo Marquez are tied in the trainer standings with five victories each. J.W. Nicholson and Hector Palma each have won four.

Through Saturday, after 12 nights of the 18-night meeting, the attendance and handle figures were lagging behind the 1990 marks. The on-track attendance of 5,356 was 1.7% behind and the on-track handle of $4956,847 was off 5.5%. When off-track sites were included, the averages increased to 6,414 in attendance, down 0.4% and the handle became $1,156,232, 1.8% under 1990.

Quarter horse jockeys Steve Treasure and Kip Didericksen travel to Ruidoso, N.M., on Thursday to ride in the All-American Derby Trials at Ruidoso Downs. Didericksen will ride Refrigerator, the 1990 All-American Futurity winner, and Treasure will ride multiple stakes winner Takin On The Cash, who is trained by Los Alamitos-based Caesar Dominguez. Didericksen normally rides both horses, but since they drew into the same trial, he was forced to choose. . . . The 10 fastest times in the eight 440-yard trials advance to the finals on Sept. 1.

Simulcasts of thoroughbred races from Del Mar begin Sunday at Los Alamitos and continue through the conclusion of that meeting on Sept. 11. . . . Friday’s racing includes two stakes: the $50,000-added Chapman Handicap for thoroughbred fillies and mares 3-years-old and up at 6 1/2 furlongs. The 118-pound co-high weights are Drouth Willow and Mahaska. Drouth Willow won five consecutive races at Santa Anita and Golden Gate Fields earlier this year and won a stakes at Pleasanton earlier this summer. Mahaska was fourth to Excess Energy in the Las Palmas Handicap on opening night of the fair.

The $50,433 California Sires Cup Derby is also part of the Friday program. The 440-yard quarter horse race features trial winners Ramtac and Fusion Illusion.