USC’s thrice-beaten football team has been stumbling...

USC’s thrice-beaten football team has been stumbling of late. And so has the school’s equine mascot, Traveler.

The Trojan horse, which makes an inspirational sprint around the Coliseum track between quarters at USC home games, bumped into a Stanford song girl last week, knocking her down.

As a result, owner Richard Saukko has been asked by the school to instruct rider Tom Knowlen to “slow the gallops” and exert “greater control” over Traveler, the Daily Trojan reported.

Walter Renwick, a member of a school service group, seemed to feel there was blame on both sides for the incident. “We warned everyone the horse was coming and got the cheerleaders off the track,” he recalled. “But then someone (from Stanford) blew a whistle and told the song girls to go out there (on the track).”

At the same time, Renwick asserted that Traveler was “going so fast he couldn’t stop. It’s a dangerous situation because there are a zillion people out there (on the sidelines).”

The Stanford song girl, by the way, was uninjured and continued to perform. Traveler, however, suffered a slight cut and did not return.

We told you about Beverly Hills’ Singing Realtor last week. Well, apartment owners are also resorting to unusual tactics to find customers.

Nancy Sales saw a North Hollywood complex that had staggered signs, in the manner of the old Burma Shave roadside ditties, that said:

“Elvis/Sightings/Move In/Here.”

A Flower Street apartment downtown boasts in ads: “Elvis Alive and Living at the Metropolitan.”

And Lee Solters swears that, near the California Racquet Club, he saw a sign in an apartment window that said: “Tenants Anyone?” A funny line, even though there’s no Elvis connection.

Courtroom Lingerie?

The juror candidates in a waiting room in Long Beach burst into laughter the other day during roll call when the bailiff called out a name that sounded like “Victoria Secret.”

No scantily clad woman from the sound-alike company’s catalogue of the same name answered, reports a Times editor, who was present. Perhaps Victoria was out in a corridor comparing notes with Frederick of Hollywood.

It’s one thing to have good relations with those in your family tree. But Ellenda Lord didn’t know she had impressed other branches until she saw her fortune in a Chinese restaurant in South Pasadena.

FORTUNE COOKIE SAYS: YOU WILL GAIN ADMINRATION FROM YOUR PEARS The botanical fortune-cookie prediction. Inquiring Minds Dept.:

Zsa Zsa Gabor, taking a break from proceedings in a lawsuit against an accountant, was spotted outside a Ventura courtroom reading a newspaper--the National Enquirer.

miscelLAny:

Our guest contributor, Tracy Winkler, points out that the Cerritos Public Library, which has a special collection of books on First Ladies, found that the only President’s wife to die in L.A. County was Lucretia R. Garfield (1832-1918). She died in South Pasadena.