LOS ALAMITOS : Globe-Trotting Jockeys Riding Quarter Horse Doubleheaders

Jockeys don’t much resemble typical business travelers. Instead of carrying briefcases or hanging bags, riders carry overnight bags stuffed with equipment and a whip sticking out the back.

But in the last few years, as quarter horse racing opportunities have increased, some riders seem to do as much traveling in the air as on horseback.

Bruce Pilkenton, G.R. Carter and Roman Figueroa traveled out of state for races last week. Pilkenton and Figueroa managed to ride in the daytime, then hop planes back to Los Alamitos in time to win stakes races that evening. Carter went back to his home track of Blue Ribbon Downs in Sallisaw, Okla., last Saturday and won the Oklahoma Futurity. He was back at Los Alamitos in time for Sunday’s races, winning the opener.

“I guess we’ve been getting our practice in the mornings (for the night races),” said Figueroa, who won Saturday’s Kaweah Bar Handicap aboard Sweeten The Pot.

Pilkenton began last Thursday morning with a flight from Los Angeles to El Paso, then transferred to a private plane for a short flight to Ruidoso Downs in the southern New Mexico mountains.

It was opening day at Ruidoso and the first of two days of trials for the Kansas Futurity, one of the few major 2-year-old races that has eluded Pilkenton in his 17-year riding career. Loose Lips, his only mount that day, is a filly Pilkenton had ridden twice in Texas this year and could have a big year.

She not only won her trial, but set the second-fastest qualifying time of the day and will start in the $215,428 final on May 24. The jockey, however, had no time to celebrate. He boarded a private plane to Albuquerque, then made a connection to Los Angeles.

By early evening, Pilkenton had landed in the Southland and headed to Los Alamitos, where he rode the final four races on the program, winning the $21,500 Town Policy Handicap at 11:41 p.m. aboard Dash Down First. Hardly a typical 16-hour day.

“Whoever invented jet lag knew what they were talking about,” Pilkenton said. “It’s not just the flying. It’s rushing to make the plane and rushing to make the races. I got up (Friday) morning and said I couldn’t have gone (back to Ruidoso) if I wanted to.”

The Town Policy, which was delayed a week because of the city’s civil unrest, was the first race in which Pilkenton had ridden Dash Down First, a 3-year-old gelding by First Down Dash, who is owned by Juan Lambaren and trained by Bonifacio Rayas. A winner of five of 13 starts, he was well beaten in two stakes races last year, but did win two $12,500 claiming races.

“I exercised him last week and thought he was ready to go,” said Pilkenton, 32.

Pilkenton has been a regular at Los Alamitos since 1979. He has won almost every major race there, most notably the Champion of Champions twice and the 1984 Dash For Cash Futurity aboard Eastex, a horse he also rode in winning the All-American Futurity at Ruidoso Downs. He skipped last year’s Bay Meadows meeting for first call aboard Joe Kirk Fulton’s string at Ruidoso Downs.

Pilkenton considered the one-year “gentlemen’s agreement” with Fulton a success, even though Pilkenton chose the wrong mount in the All-American Gold Cup and Champion of Champions last year when Fulton qualified two horses for each race. Pilkenton rode Reckless Dash in those races, leaving Special Leader to Kenneth Hart, who wound up in the winner’s circle twice.

This year, Pilkenton plans to stay in California, with occasional trips to Ruidoso and Remington Park in Oklahoma City, which also has a strong stakes program.

Figueroa’s Saturday wasn’t much different from Pilkenton’s Thursday. Figueroa caught a commuter plane to Bullhead City, Ariz., then drove 40 miles to Kingman, Ariz., to ride Rock Own in the trials of the Hualapai Downs Futurity trials. The gelding won and set the fastest qualifying time for Sunday’s futurity, in which Figueroa also will ride.

The trials ended at 2:30 p.m., giving Figueroa and fellow rider Bernie Flores 30 minutes to travel the 40 miles back to Bullhead City for the return plane. Luckily for them, their plane’s departure was delayed.

They arrived at Los Alamitos in plenty of time for Flores’ first mount in the third race.

“I would have hated to have missed (the Kaweah Bar), but I would have made it some way,” said Figueroa, who rode Sweeten The Pot for his father-in-law, trainer Blane Schvaneveldt.

Sweeten The Pot has won 12 of 17 races and has been worse than third only once. He began his career in Arizona and was second in two stakes last year with Figueroa in the irons.

The Miss Princess Handicap was run on Friday. Reeds Signature, ridden by last year’s leading rider Eddie Garcia, won her first stakes race. She was a regular in stakes company last year and was third in the Las Damas Handicap in January.

Easy Jet and Mr Doty Bars, who were champions in the ‘60s and ‘70s, were destroyed over the weekend.

Easy Jet, suffering from a case of laminitis, the disease that caused the death of Secretariat in 1989, was put down last Friday at Lazy E Ranch in Guthrie, Okla.

Easy Jet, who won the 1969 All-American Futurity en route to being named World Champion, was one of the sport’s most prolific sires. His offspring have earned more than $25 million. He won 27 of 38 starts for owner-trainer Walter Merrick, who buried Easy Jet on his ranch near Sayre, Okla.

Mr Doty Bars was claimed for $2,500 in 1977 by George Loeb. Two years later, he won the Champion of Champions at Los Alamitos, the sport’s most prestigious race for older horses, and was later named the 1979 champion aged horse. He won 24 of 64 races and more than $200,000.

A gelding, Mr Doty Bars raced until 1981 and spent the last decade of his 19-year life at Loeb Ranch in Riverside.

Mr Doty Bars suffered a heart attack and a partial stroke, then was put down later that day.

“Everyone should be lucky enough to have a horse like him,” Loeb said. “We kept him till he was an old man.”

Los Alamitos Notes

Stakes events this week include the War Chic Handicap at 870 yards Friday and the Los Alamitos Derby trials Saturday. The derby final is May 30. . . . Frank Monteleone won six races over the weekend, one more than Carlos Lopez, who won four of his five Saturday night. Jockey Kip Didericksen has nine victories, including three each night last Thursday and Saturday. He has a slight lead over Eddie Garcia, who has seven victories, four last Saturday.

Prince Brian, the 3-year-old pacer who won the $250,000 Shelly Goudreau Memorial Pace at Los Alamitos on April 25, was recently named the United States Trotting Assn.’s horse of the month for April. In the Goudreau, Prince Brian set a track record for 3-year-olds at Los Alamitos of 1:52, which is the fastest pacing mile in the country this year by a 3-year-old.