LOS ALAMITOS : X Pert Jim, Owner Got Off to Scary Start, but Everything Is Fine Now

In late 1990, Gates Brunet visited a California horse farm in search of a few young racehorses.

After watching a herd of yearlings in a field, Brunet selected two horses but settled on the one that better fit his price range. He loaded the young colt, later named X Pert Jim, in his two-horse trailer and wasn’t a mile down the road, when through his rear-view mirror, he saw X Pert Jim’s front two hoofs and head poking through the trailer’s small front window.

Frightened, Brunet immediately returned to the farm, tended to the horse and found a veterinarian who could give the horse a tranquilizer for the trip home.

“I’m thinking, ‘This must be a dream,’ ” Brunet said. “I just bought this horse and he’s paid for. I thought it was going to be a bad omen. He was quite a handful.”

The 3-year-old gelding has won four races during the month-long Los Alamitos harness meeting and should be a strong favorite in tonight’s $20,000 California Sires Stakes for 3-year-old trotting colts and geldings.

He won his fourth race of the meeting and the sixth race of his eight-race career last Wednesday in an elimination for tonight’s stakes race, trotting the mile in 2:02 4/5, considerably faster than the other division, which was won by So Fast in 2:04 1/5. In the last month, X Pert Jim, whom Brunet gelded last April, has beaten older trotters three times, including victories by seven and 12 lengths.

Last year, X Pert Jim raced only at Vernon Downs in Upstate New York, which serves as Brunet’s home track near his farm. The gelding was eligible for the California Sires Stakes program contested at Los Alamitos, but Brunet kept him on the East Coast with the rest of the small stable he maintains with his wife, Debi. She serves as stable trainer and is the daughter of California harness horseman Frank Sherren.

In 1991, X Pert Jim won two of four starts at Vernon. He finished the year with $1,250 in earnings, contrasting to the $20,976 earned by Mariah’s Mystic, the top 2-year-old colt or gelding trotter of the 1991 Los Alamitos meet.

“(X Pert Jim) wasn’t going well this time last year,” Brunet said. “He showed flashs of brilliance, but was erratic. I gelded him in April and right away, he showed improvement.

“At the same time (the California stakes horses) were going in 2:06 or 2:07. I was training him in 2:04. I was on the wrong coast. I didn’t let it bother me. I raced him for experience. I knew he wasn’t worth anything until he came back for the stakes races.”

X Pert Jim finished sixth in his first career start on July 25, the same week the California harness season was ending for the year. Brunet had hoped West Coast harness racing would be conducted in spring and fall sessions so he could bring the gelding back to California for the autumn stakes, but the two meets were consolidated into a six-month marathon from February to July that shoved all the 2-year-old stakes races into the early summer.

After his sixth-place finish, X Pert Jim didn’t return to racing until late September, racing three more times within a month and winning two. Brunet kept the gelding in light training throughout the winter, despite the fact he wasn’t racing.

“I never really stopped with him,” said Brunet, 39. “I felt I couldn’t let him down. I just kept training him to get his wind. I felt like I’d have an edge because everyone tried their colts in May and quit until November or raced until July and quit until November (when training resumed at Del Mar).”

Brunet first came to California in 1969, racing at Hollywood Park with his father. He met Debi that year, was married in 1972 and went to work for her father shortly thereafter. In 1976, the couple went East on their own and have since spent the summers in New York. For many years, they also spent their winters at Pompano Park in Florida, but sold their Florida condominium four years ago and now come to California for the winter.

In a way, Brunet is trying to repeat history. He trained Capital Game, the top 3-year-old colt or gelding trotter of the 1990 summer-fall Los Alamitos meeting, whom he purchased for $600 as a 2-year-old at a standard bred sale in Pomona.

“He won 10 of 25 (at 3), but he wasn’t the most consistent,” Brunet said. “It’s hard to keep a horse good all year, but no horse ever beat him twice.”

Brunet sold Capital Game in the spring of 1991 to Italian owners, almost the same time he began concentrating on the future career of X Pert Jim.

“X Pert Jim is a much better horse as far as a winning attitude,” Brunet said. “Capital Games wasn’t lazy, but he didn’t have the determination you can feel through the lines.

“At this time of year, Capital Game was trotting in 2:03 and 2:04 and this horse is going in 2:02,” he said. “Hopefully, he’s not just the best (3-year-old) early, but the whole year long.”

Each class of 3-year-old’s will be featured this week in California Sires Stakes. Thursday’s program includes the $20,000 Stakes for 3-year-old trotting fillies. Foxy ‘N Rowdy, a stakes winner at last year’s meeting, won the fastest of two eliminations last week in 2:05 2/5. The other elimination winner, Tony’s Best, was timed in 2:05 3/5.

Nighty Night, last year’s top 2-year-old pacing filly, won her first start of the year in Friday’s elimination. Owned, trained and driven by Rick Plano, Nighty Night was timed in 1:59 2/5, two seconds faster than First Knockout, a three-time stakes winner in 1991, who was the other elimination winner. The pacing fillies will have a $20,000 final on Friday and the pacing colts and gelding will have a $20,000 stakes on Saturday night.

Two stakes winners from last year, Picture Perfect-A and All That Rhythm, won eliminations last Saturday, but the favorite’s role for Saturday’s race might go to You Better You Bet, last year’s top 2-year-old pacing colt or gelding, who went off-stride at the top of the stretch and finished second to All That Rhythm.

Los Alamitos Notes

The California Sires Stakes and California Breeders Stakes will have four sets of finals during the spring meeting. . . . Steve Warrington and Rick Kuebler are tied in the drivers standings with 27 winners and Ross Croghan is third with 25. Robert Gordon leads the trainer standings with 30, four more than defending champion Paul Blumenfeld.

Kuebler and Blumenfeld teamed twice during the weekend to win major races. Friday night, they won the $12,000 Invitational Handicap for fillies and mares with Mary Franco, a 6-year-old mare making her first start in the top class. On Saturday night, Kuebler drove the Blumenfeld-trained Heavy Tipper, a 4-year-old gelding, to victory in the $17,000 Invitational, which was Heavy Tipper’s first victory at that level.

Stand By, who won three of the first four filly and mare invitationals this meeting, won Saturday’s 13th race, a conditioned race for winners of more than $10,000 lifetime, her first start of the year against males. She is expected to return to the filly and mare invitational this Friday night.