LOS ALAMITOS : Louisiana’s ‘Bushwhacker Is Back

The Cajuns have reinvaded Los Alamitos.

Last year, owner John Soileau, trainer Kenneth Roberts and jockey Alvin Brossette arrived from Southern Louisiana with a gray gelding named Royal Bushwhacker and won two consecutive stakes races. This year, they’re back with Royal Bushwhacker and have the fastest qualifying time for Friday’s $174,500 Los Alamitos Derby.

“We’re the Louisiana Gang,” said Soileau, who is from Opelousas, a small town 140 miles west of New Orleans, and not too far from Delta Downs in Vinton, La., where Roberts and Brossette are based. Roberts has split his stable this fall with 13 horses in California and 14 at Delta Downs.

Royal Bushwhacker, who has earned $260,000, is the star of Roberts’ barn. “I think he likes this track,” Roberts said. “He likes it when the weather is cooler. He seems to run his best races then.”

Last year, Royal Bushwhacker won Louisiana’s biggest 2-year-old race, the Firecracker Futurity at Delta Downs, and immediately headed for Ruidoso Downs, N.M., and the All-American Futurity. Soileau paid a $50,000 supplemental fee and almost got his entire investment back when Royal Bushwhacker won the first consolation, worth $48,750.

Moving farther West, he arrived at Los Alamitos last November and won the Breeders’ Juvenile Classic and the Ivan Ashment Handicap. This year’s pace has been just as hot. He raced at Manor Downs, near Austin, Tex., and at Ruidoso Downs before his Los Alamitos Derby trial on Oct. 11. His most recent start before the trial was a third place behind See Me Gone and Refrigerator in Ruidoso’s All-American Derby.

“We haul him around and he runs well everywhere,” said Roberts, who has gotten to know the flight schedules between California and Louisiana. “We’re hoping and praying we can qualify for the Champion of Champions (in late December). We feel we have a shot.

“Alvin really fits the horse. They’re like a right hand and a left hand.”

Royal Bushwhacker ran 400 yards in 19.80 seconds to lead 10 Derby qualifiers. The others are Wellinformed (19.86), Make It Known (19.91), Pouvoir (19.93), Frisco Flare (19.94), Vital Sign (19.94), Reeds Signature (19.95), Tolls Touch (19.95) and Junos Request (19.98).

Trainer Bruce Bell, like Roberts, has spent this year traveling in the Southwest with a string of quarter horses. His 2-year-old star, Femmes Frolic, is the second-fastest qualifier for Saturday’s $239,980 Kindergarten Futurity.

Which is just fine with Bell, except that the fastest qualifier--Corona Chick--set a 350-yard track record last Wednesday night, running the distance in 17.22 seconds. Femmes Frolic was timed in 17.48 seconds, about 1 3/4 lengths slower.

“There’s nothing we can do to outrun her,” he said. “We’ll be a little sharper this race, and I think if we draw off the rail, we’ll do a little better. But she’s got to come back to us, and I noticed in the Ed Burke (which Corona Chick won convincingly on Sept. 28) that she didn’t back up any.

“I think she’s the best 2-year-old I’ve seen all year,” he said. “There’s nothing even close to her. Her race in the trials was about as good of a race as you’re going to watch.”

Three Kindergarten trials were held, and the other winner was IB Quick, trained by Laura Pinelli, in 17.49. “We’ve all been around long enough to know anything can happen, but she looks like she can’t be beaten,” said Pinelli, who assisted Bob Baffert before training her own string.

“To be sitting on the third-fastest qualifier, I’m just thrilled to be there,” she said. “It’s been like living a dream.

Corona Chick, with seven victories in nine starts, including her last five, is the overwhelming favorite to become the national 2-year-old filly of the year. Her time of 17.22 seconds was only .01 off the world record set by Mr. Summer Jet in New Mexico in 1985.

Other Kindergarten qualifiers are Toltectas Lil Smash (17.59), Rush Fora Firstdown (17.59), Holland Ease (17.61), Easily A Rogue (17.63), Speckled Shorts (17.64), Stochastic (17.68) and Latest Obsession (17.74).

For the moment, Apprehend tops the list of older horses at Los Alamitos.

The 4-year-old gelding won last Saturday’s $100,000 Los Alamitos Championship, joining a growing list of contenders for the 1991 champion-aged-horse title. Apprehend, ridden by Henry Garcia and trained by Daryn Charlton, also became the first horse to win two 1991 major stakes for older horses--the Los Alamitos Championship and the Horsemen’s Quarter Horse Racing Assn. Invitational last February.

In the Championship, Apprehend beat two of his toughest competitors for year-end honors--Special Leader, the winner of the All-American Gold Cup at Ruidoso but third Saturday, and Jazzing Hi, who won the Vessels Maturity on Oct. 5 and was fourth in the Los Alamitos Championship. Three-year-old Takin On The Cash finished second Saturday.

Beating Jazzing Hi was significant for Apprehend’s owners, Pete Parella and Jerry Moreland, because Apprehend had finished seventh as the 3-5 favorite in the Vessels.

The victory was Apprehend’s second in three starts after a seven-month layoff between February and September. Parella said Apprehend will start in the Breeders Championship Classic on Nov, 9 , then in the Champion of Champions on Dec. 21, both at 440 yards.

In those races, he will face many of the same horses he beat Saturday plus--in the case of the Breeders Championship Classic--Ruidoso invaders See Me Do It and Reckless Dash.

“The next few races will sure tell,” Parella said. “We wanted this race and we thought we had a chance--440 yards is right up his alley.”

Los Alamitos Notes

The first post time for Sunday’s program has been moved to 5 p.m. with the end of Daylight time this weekend. First post time for the Wednesday-through-Saturday programs will remain 7:25 p.m. . . . Los Alamitos stewards have fined trainer Felix Payne $1,500 because an excessive amount of Butazolidin was found in three of his Arabian horses, which finished second or third in races between Sept. 20 and 26.