FAIRPLEX : Flores Gets Fast Start on Defense

His disjointed Del Mar season behind him, jockey David Flores returned to the Los Angeles County Fair Thursday without skipping a beat.

Flores, co-champion at the Pomona in 1989 and runaway winner of the riding title there last year, won both thoroughbred stakes on Fairplex Park’s opening day. He was aboard Full Time Friend for her 4 1/2-length victory in the Bustles and Bows, and one race later, in the Foothill Stakes, he rode What a Spell to a narrow victory over Border Run.

Last year, during the 19-day Fairplex meeting, Flores won 35 races, finishing 13 ahead of Julio Garcia, who was No. 2 in the standings, and missing Paco Mena’s 1981 record by three.

Flores, 23, was hauled off by immigration authorities during the early stages of the just-ended Del Mar season because he was working illegally in the United States. He obtained his visa and returned from Mexico to ride at Del Mar, but in the interim he lost the mount on Marquetry, who had given him his richest victories, in the Hollywood Gold Cup and the New England Classic at Rockingham Park.

A tiring What A Spell held on by a head at the wire in the Foothill, giving Flores his fourth winner, in addition to his second stakes victory, of the day.

Martin Pedroza rode three winners Thursday, so he and Flores left only two other thoroughbred races up for grabs among the rest of the jockeys.

Craig Lewis, who trains What A Spell for owner-breeder Jim Ford, saddled two winners, as did Roger Stein, the defending training champion.

The Del Mar season ended Wednesday with only 27% of the favorites winning, but at Fairplex Thursday favorites won all but three of the 13 races. Full Time Friend, paying $5.60, and What A Spell, with a $4.80 win mutuel, were part of the parade of favorites.

What A Spell was making his first start in four months. “He tore his foot off--the entire bottom of his foot--leaving the gate in the Spotlight Handicap (at Hollywood Park),” Lewis said.

Flores rode What A Spell to victory in the Baldwin at Santa Anita last March. “Today he was playing around in the end,” Flores said.

Full Time Friend was brought back by trainer and co-owner Caesar Dominguez after finishing fourth in the Del Mar Debutante less than two weeks ago.

“She’s very sound and she’s big and strong,” Dominguez said. He and his partner, Rick Evans, bought her at auction for $5,500, and Thursday’s victory, the 2-year-old filly’s second in four starts, boosted her earnings to $53,450.

“We thought she might go for $25,000 or $30,000 when we got her,” Dominguez said. “There was a $200,000 offer for her before the Debutante. Two crazy people, huh? The one who made the offer and the one who turned it down.”

Horse Racing Notes

In the first of six quarter horse stakes at Fairplex Park, Quinwa won Thursday’s First Down Dash Handicap. Quinwa’s trainer, Connie Hall, and her jockey, Eddie Garcia, also were responsible for Bravo Dasher winning the stake a year ago. . . . Elegant Bargain, winner of last year’s Pomona Invitational Handicap, will have the outside post in a nine-horse field for Saturday’s $50,000 Phil D. Shepherd Stakes. Elegant Bargain, who will be ridden by David Flores, carries 122 pounds, seven more than his rivals. . . . Thursday’s attendance was 7,430, about 700 more than last year’s opening-day crowd.

Trainer John Sullivan has had a horse test positive for cocaine. No ruling has been issued against Sullivan, and a hearing is continuing. One of Sullivan’s best horses was The Bart, who lost a photo finish to John Henry in the first Arlington Million. . . . Local horsemen, many of whom have had charges dropped by the state after positive cocaine tests, were irked by a recent comment from Jose Martin, a New York trainer. In commenting on a statement by Robert Fritz, a New York veterinarian, regarding alleged illegal drug use on horses there, Martin said: “It’s an insane remark and an insult to every trainer in New York. How can he make a remark comparing New York to California, when California is the capital of cocaine positives in the racing world?” Martin’s brother, Greg Martin, had a horse test positive for cocaine in California.

An old racing adage, that the best way to end a friendship is to have a partnership in a good horse, has come true for the owners of Strike The Gold, this year’s Kentucky Derby winner. While trainer Nick Zito tries to figure out why the colt is winless since Churchill Downs, the horse’s three owners are in litigation about who should be calling the shots. Chris Antley was dumped in favor of Angel Cordero as Strike The Gold’s jockey, but that hasn’t helped. Strike The Gold will be a longshot Sunday when he runs against In Excess, Farma Way and Festin in the Woodward at Belmont Park.