LOS ALAMITOS : Victory by Perfect Picture-A Was One for the Really Small Owners

Owner-driver Hank Hayward’s victory in last Saturday’s $20,000 California Sires Stakes for 3-year-old pacing colts and geldings represented a victory for harness racing’s small owners.

Very small.

Hayward and his wife, Paula, own one horse in training--Picture Perfect-A, who won his second stakes race last weekend. They also own a 2-year-old they hope will be racing at Sacramento this summer. Otherwise, the couple work as grooms for trainer Jim Grundy and live on the backstretch.

Hayward, 42, only drives Picture Perfect-A, leaving the training duties to Bob Johnson. In last Saturday’s race, Hayward and Picture Perfect-A led a competitive field wire to wire, pacing the mile in 1:57 2/5, considerably faster than Picture Perfect-A’s previous best of 1:59 1/5 last July 20 in his first stakes triumph. It was the colt’s second victory in four starts this year and the third in his nine-race career.

“This is a thrill,” Hayward said after accepting congratulations from several backstretch employees. “(Owning a stakes horse) is something every horsemen dreams about, especially if you’ve never been there. The competition is always very, very tough.”

Hayward has been a part of California harness racing for 15 years. He was drawn to the sport in the late ‘60s, when, as a Maryland farmhand, one of the men he worked for began learning the game. Hayward eventually drove two stakes winners in 1977 at Rosecroft Raceway and Batavia Downs in races for 2-year-old trotting fillies.

“I tangled with some of the greatest drivers in the history of the sport,” he said. “Ralph Baldwin, the Haughton Stable, Stanley Dancer--they were all there (at Batavia). Del Miller came up to me and said, ‘Son, you drive a nice race.’ ”

Shortly afterward, Hayward came West to try his hand at driving. Finding few trainers who would give him a chance, he eventually took a backstretch job as a groom or a second trainer just to make ends meet.

Hayward occasionally would develop a horse into something special, only to see it passed on to another trainer. In the mid-’80s, he bought Caliente as a yearling for $5,000, trained the horse and raced him in stakes company, then later sold him for $15,000.

“That was a nice little turnaround,” he said.

People have also made offers for Picture Perfect-A, who has earned $39,875 in his brief career, and will be back on the track this weekend in Saturday’s California Sires Stakes Eliminations.

“I had an offer,” he said. “Like I told them, I’m not interested in selling because I want to drive and if I sell him I’ll be defeating my purpose. I want to enjoy the icing on the cake.”

Last year, Picture Perfect-A was never worse than third, winning one stake in his fifth start and finishing second in two stakes and third in two other stakes events in his first four races. The colt earned more than $25,000 last year, but the Haywards went to work for Grundy during the winter, training at Del Mar so they could meet the bills.

The colt has stakes obligations throughout the year, both at Los Alamitos this spring and fall and at Sacramento in the summer. He’s already beaten his rivals twice, in last Saturday’s stakes and an elimination on Feb. 22, where Picture Perfect-A was a 5 1/2-length winner.

Hayward will stay in the sulky, driving Picture Perfect-A, and hopes that R M’s Goosebumps, his 2-year-old, can repeat his stablemate’s accomplishments later this year and next year as a 3-year-old.

“I love horses and wouldn’t give it up for anything,” Hayward said. “Once you’re a horseman, it’s impossible to get it out of your blood.

Driver Mickey Di Franco escaped serious injury last Saturday night when he was involved in a three-horse spill midway through the 10th race. Di Franco was on the rail, behind Sheena Royale and Starberry Sundae, at the start of the clubhouse turn, when Sheena Royale went off-stride and slowed quickly. Starberry Sundae, driven by Gary Perry, was able to move to the outside and Di Franco was able to slow his horse, Nut Bread G, but could not get out of the way of Seal Of Approval, who was behind him. Seal Of Approval’s head hit Di Franco in the back, knocking him out of the sulky.

Di Franco scrambled under the rail to safety and was a little slow to rise, but less than half an hour later drove Somercrest to a second-place finish behind Picture Perfect-A in the California Sires Stakes for 3-year-old pacing colts and geldings.

Mannart Tornado, a 13-year-old gelding, won last Saturday’s sixth race for his 104th victory and his 52nd sub-two-minute winning mile. Mannart Tornado, owned, trained and driven by Don Monkman, was timed in 1:57 1/5 and now stands 12th on the sport’s list of sub-two-minute pacers.

Monkman and Mannart Tornado have been together off and on for several years. Monkman claimed the gelding for $15,000 in the mid-1980s. He nurtured the horse into the invitational division on the Edmonton-Calgary circuit, then lost him in a $25,000 claiming race. He later reclaimed the horse for $8,000, lost him for $15,000 and claimed him a third time recently for $5,000. Last Saturday, Mannart Tornado won his first race in four Los Alamitos starts at the $8,000 level and paid $26.40 to win.

“He’s made all his money knocking away in claimers and overnight races,” said Monkman of New Saretta, Alberta, Canada. “He just knows how to win.”

Mannart Tornado, who has started 352 times, also knows how to eat, especially muffins, according to Monkman. In honor of his 100th victory last year, an Alberta muffin shop invited the gelding to its grand opening, where he was presented with a huge muffin.

“The girl that handled him was petrified,” said Monkman. “As soon as he saw them, he went right to them. He ate it all and then some. It was quite comical.”

Los Alamitos Notes

Stand By won her fifth race in six Los Alamitos starts last Friday in the $12,000 Invitational for fillies and mares. Till We Meet Again, the 1989 national 2-year-old pacer of the year, won Saturday’s $16,000 Invitational for his first victory of the year. The race was run at the unusual distance of 1 1/4 miles and was timed in 2:25 2/5, three-fifths off the track record. Till We Meet Again is approaching $900,000 in earnings and was driven by Stan Bayless.

Bag A Few was named the California Harness Horsemen’s Assn. 1991 horse of the year. The 3-year-old pacing filly won 15 of 18 starts and $143,882. She is owned by Chris Bardis of Sacramento and trained and driven by Jim Grundy. . . . Aside from the sires stakes, two pacing series also begin this week. The Anaheim Series first leg has two division tonight, the 11th and 12th races, and the Garden Grove Series’ first leg is Thursday night’s 11th race.

For the record: Jack Sherren is the father of Debbie Brunet, the trainer of the stakes-winning 3-year-old trotter X Pert Jim. Also, Time Out defeated Nighty Night on Feb. 7, which was Nighty Night’s first race of 1992.