LOS ALAMITOS : Not Enough Quarter Horses to Go Around

The Los Alamitos spring-summer quarter horse meeting will begin Thursday with a nine-race card that reflects the small number of horses ready to run.

No quarter horse racing has been conducted in California since the fall-winter meet ended in January, forcing horsemen to seek stables away from the track. Some sent their horses to local farms, but other horses were retired or shipped to their owners as far away as Texas.

Horses began reassembling at Fairplex Park in Pomona and San Luis Rey Downs in Bonsall for qualifying workouts during the last month, but not enough were ready by Monday to complete the 11-race program that the Horsemen’s Quarter Horse Racing Assn., which conducts quarter horse racing at Los Alamitos, had hoped to present. Only seven quarter horse and two Arabian races will be run on opening night.

The feature race will be the $20,000-added Town Policy Handicap for 3-year-olds, which has drawn the only 10-horse field. Easily A Rogue, a filly who won the La Primera Del Ano Derby in January, is one of the leading contenders against males.

Only nine races will be run Friday, including the Miss Princess Handicap; the goal had been 12 races. The HQHRA hopes to run 14 races on Saturday and 11 on Sunday, including Arabian races on all programs. Racing will be conducted on a four-day basis in the near future, unless a committee of horsemen and management feels there are enough horses to fill a five-day week.

The four-day week and the stabling between meetings were two of several issues concerning horsemen that resulted in several meetings with management last week. Another issue is the impact that inter-track wagering with Hollywood Park will have each Friday night this summer.

Los Alamitos will have quarter horse programs on Friday nights at the same time inter-track wagering will be conducted on Hollywood Park thoroughbred racing and standardbred racing from Cal-Expo in Sacramento. The effect that will have on the quarter horse mutuel handle remains to be seen, but horsemen fear it will be negative, which would affect purses.

Several champions will return, including Corona Chick, the 1991 national 2-year-old of the year, who won four futurities. Refrigerator, who was third in the 1991 Champion of Champions and won the 1990 All-American Futurity en route to being voted 1990 2-year-old of the year, has been nominated to Saturday’s Kaweah Bar Handicap.

The spring harness meeting ended Saturday with the biggest race of the meeting, the $250,000 Shelly Goudreau Memorial Pace, and the largest mutuel handle of the season--$1,294,895.

Including off-track wagering, the final overall averages for the meeting were 4,836 fans and a mutuel handle of $933,320. For the 1991 meeting, which lasted through July--an average of 4,800 wagered $787,668. This year, harness racing shifts to Sacramento from May 8 to Aug. 8 and returns to Los Alamitos from Aug. 21 through Nov. 14.

“Last year, we averaged $787,000, and next year we’ll average $1.05 to $1.1 million,” said Lloyd Arnold, the president and general manager of the Los Alamitos Racing Assn., which conducts harness racing at Los Alamitos. “We’re needing 150 good horses, which we’ll have next year, and we’ll be able to get rid of the maidens and the $6,000 claimers.”

Arnold expects five major stables from the East to join the 1993 winter-spring season, but declined to identify them. This year’s meeting was boosted by several horsemen racing in California on a full-time basis for the first time, including Steve Warrington,, Greg Wright, Terry Kerr and Keith Clark, all of whom finished in the top 20 of the driver standings.

Warrington was the second-leading driver behind Ross Croghan, who had been the best percentage driver for seven of the last 10 years in California, but had never won the Los Alamitos driving title. Tim Diliberto, the trainer of Croghan’s stable, won his third training title, edging Robert Gordon.

Los Alamitos Notes

Prince Brian was voted 3-year-old pacing colt or gelding of the meeting. Other pacing award winners included Nighty Night, 3-year-old filly; Positron, aged horse or gelding; Stand By, aged mare.

Trotting awards went to Bonefide Boy, 3-year-old colt or gelding; Tony’s Best, 3-year-old filly; Magic Moose, aged horse or gelding, and Frederique, aged mare. The trotting claimer of the meeting was Macho Camacho, and Blechnum Grove was voted pacing claimer of the meeting, thanks to his dead-heat with Shangani in 1:55 3/5 on April 3 after setting impressive opening fractions.