LOS ALAMITOS : Quarter Horses to Race on Sundays

After two successful quarter horse meetings in the last 12 months, Los Alamitos officials are looking toward this year’s fall-winter meeting, which begins Friday and runs through Feb. 8, with optimism.

Last year’s winter meeting was one of the few at California tracks to show gains in both on-track attendance and handle. This summer’s Bay Meadows meeting in San Mateo also showed increases from the previous year.

This year’s schedule also will have a slightly different look. Sunday racing with a 6 p.m. post time has replaced the Tuesday evening programs. The move was designed to lure thoroughbred bettors, who will be at Los Alamitos for satellite Del Mar wagering, into staying into the evening and watching the quarter horses.

“We will get a different crowd for the daytime thoroughbred racing than the night quarter horse racing,” said Brad McKinzie, the vice president and general manager of the Horsemen’s Quarter Horse Racing Assn. which conducts the quarter horse meets at Los Alamitos. “That’s one of the main reasons we went to Sundays. If there are 4,000 daytime thoroughbred fans and we can make 400 fans for quarter horse racing, then that will have a longtime benefit for us.

“We think we can build on what we started last November,” he said. “We don’t know what going up against Pomona and Del Mar will do to us, but I’m fairly confident that we’ll be up.”

This year’s meet features 46 stakes. Two-year-olds are featured in the Ed Burke Memorial Futurity on Sept. 28, the Kindergarten on Oct. 26, The Dash For Cash Futurity on Nov. 30 and the Golden State Futurity on Dec. 28.

Three-year-olds have the Los Alamitos Derby on Oct. 25, the Sophomore Handicap on Nov. 23 and the Dash For Cash Derby on Dec. 27. Races for older horses include the Vessels Maturity on Oct. 5, the Los Alamitos Championship on Oct. 19, the Champion of Champions on Dec. 21 and the closing-night HQHRA Championship on Feb. 8.

The Quarter Horse Breeders Classic program on Nov. 9 features seven races with $360,000 in added purses, including the the $125,000-added Breeder’s Championship Classic for 3-year-olds and older.

The meet’s daily program has been expanded to two pages per race to provide more information. Bilingual betting windows and special windows for newcomers will be introduced.

Despite a slight decline in attendance and handle figures from the previous years, Norb Bartosik, the general manager of the Orange County Racing Fair, said the fair probably will return to Los Alamitos next year.

The attendance, including off-track figures, was 6,290 and handle was $1,138,470. Respectively, those figures are 2.3% and 3.8% less than last year. The on-track averages of 5,261 and $939,256 were off 3.8% and 7.2%.

“I think we’ve done well,” Bartosik said. “Only being down a little bit makes me happy, that bucks the trend.”

Bartosik said he hopes the fair can retain August dates next year, which would give it the only live thoroughbred racing in the Los Angeles-area during that month.

“The key to our success is the expansion of the satellite market and it looks like it’ll happen,” he said. “We’re not throwing in the towel.”

Hector Torres, a 19-year-old apprentice, won his first riding title with 31 winners, three more than Adalberto Lopez, who finished second for the second consecutive year. Torres rode five winners on Aug. 12. Lopez won races on 16 of the fair’s 18 nights and had 13 winners in the first six nights.

In the trainer’s standings, Juan Garcia edged Hector Palma, 10-8. Last year, Palma won, 9-8. Palma, the all-time leading thoroughbred trainer at the Orange County Racing Fair, increased his victory total to 73.

Trainer Bruce Jackson returned to the Los Alamitos winners’ circle last Saturday night with Orange County Handicap winner Elegant Bargain. Jackson, who also trains In Excess, the winner of the Whitney Handicap at Saratoga on Aug. 3, was one of the leading quarter horse trainers at Los Alamitos in the early 1980s, but switched to thoroughbreds in 1987.

As a quarter horse trainer, Jackson won the 1977 Golden State Derby with The Bulldogger and the 1983 Faberge Futurity with Indigo Illusion. His thoroughbred string includes In Excess, the East Coast’s leading handicap horse, who has won three consecutive grade I races in New York.

Elegant Bargain’s 6 1/4-length victory in the Orange County Handicap was timed in 1:41 1/5, a fifth of a second off the track record. The 6-year-old horse seems to prefer shorter courses such as Fairplex Park in Pomona and Los Alamitos; he won the 1989 Mt. Harvard Handicap at Los Alamitos and the 1990 Pomona Invitational Handicap at Fairplex Park.

After his Pomona victory last year, Elegant Bargain was winless in his next five starts before winning a $62,500 claiming race at Del Mar on July 21. “That race was an easy victory and it got his confidence back,” Jackson said. “He’d had trouble in his last few.”

Jockey Gary Stevens had Elegant Bargain slightly behind the leaders before taking the lead on the final turn.

“He’s pretty solid anyway, but you get him on a (short track) and he moves up 10 lengths,” said Stevens, who also rides In Excess.

“I really didn’t have to ask him to run until the stretch,” he said. “Just galloped him around and let him run a sixteenth at the end.”

Also Saturday, Corona Chick, a 2-year-old quarter horse, defeated a strong field by 1 1/4 lengths in the $150,000 Governors Cup Futurity, the richest race of the meeting.

The filly ran the 350 yards in 17.54 seconds for her fourth victory in six races. In her only previous stakes, Corona Chick finished fifth in the Bay Meadows Futurity on July 13. Trainer Frank Monteleone said the filly will be pointed toward the California Sires Cup Futurity trials Aug. 28 or the Ed Burke Memorial Futurity trials Sept. 18.

Los Alamitos Notes

A stakes race is scheduled for each night of the weekend. Friday’s program is highlighted by the $20,000-added Miss Princess Handicap for older fillies and mares at 350 yards. Four mares were weighted at 122 pounds, including Isaws Sugar Bear and Suena Eye, both of whom are trained by Bob Gilbert. The mares were third and sixth, respectively, in the Peninsula Championship at Bay Meadows in July. Winning Guarantee, who beat males in the Gold Coast Express Handicap on Aug. 10 at the fair, is also at 122 pounds.

Winning Guarantee, trained by Caesar Dominguez and owned by Alfonso Gonzalez, was also nominated to Saturday’s $20,000-added Kaweah Bar Handicap and would carry 120 pounds, three less than Casady King and Golden Rustler. Casady King, a winner of 12 of 22 starts, has been off since the 1990 Pomona meeting, where he was second in the Pomona Invitational Handicap for quarter horses. Golden Rustler has been first or second in his last four starts, including a victory in the 350-yard Yorba Linda Handicap at Los Alamitos on Feb. 1.

Sunday’s feature is the $10,000-added Vandy’s Flash Handicap for 3-year-old’s at 350 yards. Nominees include My Escalon, the Wine Country Derby winner at Santa Rosa in July; Kid O Dash, fourth behind Winning Guarantee in the Gold Coast Express; and Easy Martini, who is unraced in 1991, but won eight of 11 races in 1990.

Arabians will race twice per night. Trials for the California Oaks, for 4-year-old Arabian fillies, and the California Derby for 4-year-olds will be run Friday and Saturday, respectively. The finals, with estimated purses of $25,000 each, are Sept. 6 and 7.