LOS ALAMITOS : Wealth Started Out as a Pauper

Last summer, Zory Kuzyk bought the highest-priced fillies at yearling sales in New Mexico and Oklahoma for $123,000 and $65,500, respectively. Now, however, the talk of her small stable is Wealth, a 3-year-old gelding she bought in 1989 for $30,000.

Wealth became the second-fastest qualifier for Friday night’s $137,200 Southern California Derby--behind Takin On The Cash--by winning a trial last Wednesday. The Dash For Cash gelding has won four of nine races this year, after giving no indication last year of his future talent.

He started only once as a 2-year-old, in a 300-yard maiden race, and was beaten by 9 1/4 lengths. Almost a year later, on May 22, he won his second start, at odds of 87-1. It was also trainer Laura Pinelli’s first winner as a trainer.

Pinelli remembers Wealth’s only start last year. “The ambulance was honking for him to get out of the way,” said Pinelli, then an assistant to former quarter horse trainer Bob Baffert. “(Wealth) needed some maturity.”

This year, Wealth has raced against some of the better 3-year-olds in California, after winning a $10,000 claiming race at Bay Meadows in June.

“After he won the claiming race, we realized we had more than we thought,” said Kuzyk, who races the horses with her husband, Walter. “(Wealth) looked like a toad as a 2-year-old. So we laid him up from June (of 1990) to Bay Meadows (in May). You could see him develop into a nice horse.”

Wealth will be half of a Pinelli-trained entry in the Southern California Derby. The 31-year-old trainer will also saddle Dash For Time, also for Kuzyk. Winning will be a tough task for either of his horses. Top qualifier Takin On The Cash has already beaten older horses this year, and was an easy winner in his trial last Wednesday.

“It’ll be special after (Wealth) wins the Derby and beats Takin On The Cash,” Kuzyk said. “We’re tickled with him because he’s something we didn’t expect.”

In addition to Takin On The Cash, Wealth and Dash For Time, the field for Friday night’s Derby includes Kid O Dash, Galla Go Special, High Class Gal, Shawnes Diamond, My Escalon, Streakin Dolly and How Special.

Corona Chick’s victory in last Thursday’s Dash For Cash Futurity trials was the 2-year-old filly’s seventh consecutive success and gave her the fastest time for Saturday night’s $282,884 Futurity. It was Corona Chick’s first start at 400 yards. She set stakes records in two major Futurity races and a track record of 17.22 seconds for 350 yards in a futurity trial on Oct. 16.

She ran 19.65 in last Thursday’s trial, her first start since a one-length victory in the Kindergarten Futurity on Oct. 26. “We gave her two weeks off, galloped her and walked her,” trainer Frank Monteleone said. “I wasn’t worried about the 400 yards. In every one of her races, she runs better on the end.”

She has won nine of her last 11 starts, including three stakes, and $332,549. Owned by Robert Etchandy, she is the favorite to be voted 2-year-old of the year in January by the American Quarter Horse Assn. Racing Committee. Etchandy and Monteleone plan only three more starts for Corona Chick at the current quarter horse meeting--the Dash For Cash Futurity final Saturday night, the La Primera del Ano Derby trials on Jan. 9 and the finals on Jan. 18, closing night.

“I think she’ll come back well (in 1992),” Monteleone said. “We started breaking her (last) January, and she’s been in training every day since. I think a rest will do her well.”

Other qualifiers for the Dash For Cash, named for the two-time winner of the Champion of Champions and the breed’s premier sire, are Holland Ease, Femmes Frolic, Dahs Ta Fame, Quantum Effort, High Cotton Doll, Ima Screamin Demon, Paw Pete, Kid Beduino and Blue Blister.

Three California-based harness horsemen have been suspended for periods ranging from six months to two years by the New Jersey Racing Commission for their involvement in an attempt to administer a sodium bicarbonate and water “milkshake” to a standardbred at Freehold (N.J.) Raceway last month.

Steve Hyman, 36, of Anaheim was suspended for two years and fined $500. Eddie Hensley, 25, of Riverside, and Luis Pena, 23, of Los Alamitos were suspended for six months but not fined. The rulings were handed down late last week by state steward Kent Hastings.

Hastings ruled that Hyman, who is based at Garden State Park in Cherry Hill, N.J., attempted to administer the mixture to Startler, a horse Hyman drives and trains, before the ninth race on Oct. 12 but was stopped by a security guard. Hastings also ruled that Hensley and Pena “conspired with other persons in providing, preparing and attempting to administer a ‘milkshake’ to Startler . . . “

Injected into a horse’s stomach by a tube through the nose, the mixture is thought to provide a horse with a jolt of energy.

Hyman was found in possession of a long tube, a funnel, sodium bicarbonate and a large metal clip. He has appealed the suspension, which runs through Nov. 22, 1993.

Hensley, who was the fourth-leading driver at the recently concluded Los Alamitos harness meeting, and Pena, who was not among the leaders, would not be eligible for California racing until the summer-long Sacramento meeting.

Hyman declined comment on the suspension and his appeal.

Isaws Sugar Bear and Pouvoir won major stakes last weekend at Los Alamitos. Isaws Sugar Bear won Friday’s Anne Burnett Invitational Handicap, a Grade I, $50,000 race for fillies and mares; Pouvoir won Saturday’s $32,250 Sophomore Handicap.

Isaws Sugar Bear, a 4-year-old filly from the Bob Gilbert barn, has won two consecutive stakes and is preparing for the Champion of Champions trials on Dec. 7.

Owned by Ronald Cook of Casper, Wyo., Isaws Sugar Bear was seventh in last year’s Champion of Champions after being interfered with and almost falling midway through the stretch.

Pouvoir’s nose victory in the Sophomore Handicap was his first stakes success--but trainer Daryn Charlton’s seventh stakes victory of the meeting. The 3-year-old gelding has been second in three major stakes this fall, losing by a total of 1 1/4 lengths.

“He was overdue for a win,” said Charlton, who will saddle Apprehend and Jazzing Hi in the Champion of Champions on Dec. 21. “I was afraid he had ‘seconditis.’ ”