LOS ALAMITOS : Jazzing Hi Gets Off to a Good Start

Trainer Daryn Charlton is hoping Jazzing Hi’s flawless performance in winning last Sunday’s $13,475 Double Bid Handicap is a notice of better things ahead for the 5-year-old horse.

Jazzing Hi was named last year’s champion aged stallion, but won only the Vessels Maturity at Los Alamitos. He lost three of 1990’s biggest races--the Los Alamitos Championship, the Breeders Championship Classic and the Champion of Champions by a total of 1 1/2 lengths.

Sunday, he was an easy winner of the small stake in his first start since he ran fourth in the Horsemen’s Quarter Horse Racing Assn. Invitational in February.

“Last year, he had some tough luck,” said winning jockey Bruce Pilkenton, who joined the Los Alamitos meet last Wednesday after a summer at Ruidoso Downs in Ruidoso, N.M. “He got bumped around a couple of times and probably lost a (chance at) $100,000 (in extra prize money). It’s about time he had some luck.”

Jazzing Hi, owned by Charlton’s uncle, Wayne Charlton, and Kenneth Wright, beat Power Train, the 1989 Kansas Futurity winner, by three-quarters of a length in the 400-yard time of 19.87 seconds.

“I asked him for a little acceleration and he just started marching,” Pilkenton said.

Trainer Charlton, 27, directs a 40-horse stable at Los Alamitos and is prepping Jazzing Hi for the Vessels Maturity Trials on Sept. 20. “Hopefully, he’ll come back stronger (this year),” said Charlton, who also trains the 1990 champion 3-year-old gelding, Apprehend, and is also pointing that horse to the Vessels trials.

“(Jazzing Hi) would have given Dash For Speed a run for her money (in the 1990 Champion of Champions) if he’d have gotten a good trip.”

Charlton will follow a schedule similar to last year’s for Jazzing Hi, running him in the $100,000 Vessels Maturity on Oct. 5, the $100,000 Los Alamitos Championship on Oct. 19, the $125,000 Breeders’ Championship Classic on Nov. 9 and the $250,000 Champion of Champions on Dec. 21. Jazzing Hi will need an invitation to enter the Champion of Champions, but a victory in one of the first three six-figure races would guarantee him a position.

Rush Fora Firstdown’s victory in Saturday’s $108,750 California Sires Cup Futurity in 17.52 seconds was the fastest 350 yards by a 2-year-old this season, beating Corona Chick’s 17.54 clocking in the Governor’s Cup Futurity on Aug. 17.

The first four finishers of the California Sires Cup Futurity were sired by 1987 World Champion First Down Dash, who won the Champion of Champions that year.

Rush Fora Firstdown is trained by Bob Baffert and owned by his breeder, Robert Kieckhefer, of Prescott, Ariz.

Kieckhefer, 73, has had a lifelong interest in horses, especially quarter horses. He helped start quarter horse racing in Prescott and has shown horses in Arizona for many years. He also spent six years on the Arizona Racing Commission and was president of the American Quarter Horse Racing Assn. in 1976.

One of his notable running quarter horses was Five Oclock Rush, the dam of Rush Fora Firstdown and one of the first horses that Baffert trained at Los Alamitos in 1976.

“I’ve been riding horses since I was 4 years old,” Kieckhefer said. “This is the best one (he has owned). Before that, his mother was.”

In the business world, Kieckhefer is best known as the man who developed the milk-carton spout, and he served 25 years as a member of the executive committee of Weyerhaeuser, a company he helped form.

“It’s been a fun life,” he said. “I enjoyed it more when my wife was still alive.”

Rush Fora Firstdown earned $48,937 for his one-length victory, his second in three starts.

“We figured he’d be right there if he broke well,” Kieckhefer said, adding that the race took on added significance because he had bred the gelding. “It proves that the fundamental concept of your breeding program was correct and, second, you had good luck.”

The first Arabian stakes of the meeting were run over the weekend. Fryga, the 4-5 favorite, won Friday’s $17,187 California Oaks for 4-year-olds and Fast Ptrack edged The Fast Lane in Saturday’s $41,000 California Derby.

Fryga has now won races in Delaware and Northern and Southern California this year. She is owned by John and Helen Burger, who are planning to transfer their 13-horse operation from Ocala, Fla., to California.

“With the Arabians getting so strong, we’ve shipped all of our horses to California,” John Burger said. “The best racing is in California and Delaware. We’re looking to buy a place above Santa Ynez.

“This program is really going to take off. We’re not moving anymore. We’re staying right here.”

Fryga was third in the Arabian Cup Juvenile last December at Los Alamitos and then raced in Arizona, Northern California and Delaware before returning to Los Alamitos. Burger said the 4-year-old filly, trained by Alan Frye and ridden by Duane Davis, will be pointed to a $50,000 stake at Los Alamitos on Sept. 28.

Fast Ptrack won his first stake in Saturday’s Derby. The 4-year-old colt began his racing career at Los Alamitos last January and has since won four of seven starts, all in California. Jockey Severiano Martinez rode Fast Ptrack to a neck victory over favored The Fast Lane for trainer Jean Pacheco and owners Sylvia and Francis Rust.

Two of the top quarter horse mares in training will campaign at Los Alamitos this season. See Me Do It, the 1989 World Champion, and See Me Gone, who has won two of the sport’s biggest derbies this summer, will be on the grounds by the end of the week.

See Me Do It, who was second in her only start this year at Ruidoso Downs, is under the care of trainer Blane Schvaneveldt. See Me Gone is expected to be in trainer Bob Gilbert’s barn by the end of the week.

Although the mares have similar names, they are unrelated. Their careers have also been similar.

Both have run third in the All-American Futurity--See Me Do It in 1988 and See Me Gone in 1990. Both also have won the Rainbow and All-American derbies--See Me Gone this year and See Me Do It in 1989. See Me Do It also won the 1989 Champion of Champions.

Neither trainer was certain when the mares would run here but Schvaneveldt mentioned the Vessels Maturity Trials for See Me Do It and Gilbert is considering the Los Alamitos Derby Trials on Oct. 11 for See Me Gone.

Los Alamitos Notes

Through 13 days of the quarter horse meeting, jockey Eddie Garcia leads the rider standings with 17 victories in 84 races. G. R. Carter, Roman Figueroa and Jim Lewis are tied for second with 11 each. Carter will fall from among the leaders in the next two weeks, having begun a 10-day suspension last Sunday. The Oklahoma native was hit with two five-day suspensions after disqualifications on Sept. 1 and 6. In the trainer’s standings, Blane Schvaneveldt has 11 victories in 85 starters, one more than Caesar Dominguez, who has started 57.

Through Sunday, the average attendance, including off-track, was 6,610 and the average mutual handle was $923,276. . . . Weekend stakes include the Lowell Dillingham Handicap Friday for 3-year-old fillies at 350 yards, and Saturday’s feature, the $30,000-added Town Policy Handicap for 3-year-olds at 350 yards.

Trials were held last Friday to determine the field for the $225,000 Governor’s Cup Derby for California-breds. The final for the 400-yard race is Sept. 21, and includes Tolls Touch, who had the fastest qualifying time, 19.74; My Escalon, 19.79; Vital Sign, 19.84; Resolutions, 19.85; Pouvoir, 19.86; Miningman, 19.88; Blisterin, 19.96; Sable Select and White Ice, 19.97; and First Installment, 19.98.

Dashin Willie, an allowance winner last Wednesday night, has Los Alamitos in the family. His sire, Dash For Cash, won the 1976 and 1977 Champion of Champions, and his dam, Viking Anne, won several Los Alamitos 870-yard stakes in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. Viking Anne has had four foals--Wicked Dash, Wicked Wind, Strictly Wicked and Wicked Willa, all sired by Dash For Cash--who have won or placed in major Los Alamitos stakes. Dashin Willie is owned by the Phillips Ranch of Frisco, Tex., and is trained by Schvaneveldt.

Lil Bit Rusty, who won two stakes races at last year’s winter meeting, won her first start since Feb. 2 in last Friday’s ninth race.