LOS ALAMITOS : List Will Have a Triple Threat in the Governor’s Cup Futurity

Jens List’s three-horse entry in Sunday’s Governor’s Cup Futurity at Los Alamitos could provide the Westminister resident with an elusive prize--victory in a major futurity.

List, who in the last few years has assembled one of the largest quarter horse racing stables in the Southland, will be represented by First Hi Hope, Tactfully and Kipta Lou My Darlin in the $150,000 final, richest race for 2-year-olds at the spring-summer meeting.

List, whose quarter horses are trained by Caesar Dominguez, started four horses in the July 26 trials and qualified three. He hopes to improve on his second place in last year’s $243,000 PCQHRA Breeders Futurity, with Bandobeduino--his best finish in a futurity.

The Governor’s Cup Futurity isn’t the only time this year that he has qualified three horses for a final, but it will be the first time he has had such an excellent chance to win. List had three horses in the $100,000 Dash For Cash Derby but managed only a fifth. He is more confident about these three, all winners of trial races on July 26. The horses were bred by List and raised at his Double Bar S Ranch in Moreno Valley.

List offered all three last November in a yearling sale at Los Alamitos, but took them home when the bidding prices stayed low. Of the three, First Hi Hope brought the highest offer, of $24,000. List was hoping for $30,000.

“I approached (the sale) with the intent of selling and not giving them away,” he said. “I like them too much for that.”

All three were lightly raced entering the trials. First Hi Hope, who posted the fastest qualifying time, 17.63 seconds for 350 yards, had raced twice, finishing third and fifth; Tactfully had been away from the races since winning his second start on June 19, and Kipta Lou My Darlin, a filly, was third in her only start on July 4.

List, who paid $330,000 for the stallion Strawfly Special earlier this year in Oklahoma City, also has some promising 2-year-olds who haven’t started.

“We have three more that I have high hopes for, and they’re going in the Ed Burke (trials on Aug. 28 at Hollywood Park),” he said. “It’s been a sensational year, and I hope the luck continues in the futurities.”

The 1991 Governor’s Cup Futurity was the first stakes victory for Corona Chick, who in the last year has won 12 consecutive races. The 3-year-old filly will be an overwhelming favorite in Saturday’s $222,000 Governor’s Cup Derby, richest stake of the meeting. If she wins the 400-yard race, she will be the third horse in the Derby’s 12-year history to sweep the Futurity and the Derby.

“If she leaves (the gate fast), they flat will not beat her,” said Frank Monteleone, Corona Chick’s trainer.

In 1990 and 1991, the Arabian gelding Magna Terra Smoky was rewarded with year-end honors. Two years ago, he had 10 victories in 15 starts and earnings of more than $60,000. Last year, he won six of 22 starts and was in the money 19 times.

This year, the 6-year-old has only one victory in five starts, but has battled a disease that cost him his right eye.

Barbara Jagoda, who owns and trains Magna Terra Smoky, was preparing the gelding for the spring-summer meeting in April when she noticed problems with the eye. Even though veterinarians at the track were caring for the eye, the situation didn’t improve.

The early diagnosis was a scratched cornea. He ran second in two races in May, but since the eye didn’t heal immediately, the gelding was sent to a clinic in Chino at the end of that month.

In an attempt to save the eye, it was stitched shut, but when it was reopened, it hadn’t healed. In fact, it had gotten worse. Jagoda suggested taking the eye out.

“I just wanted the horse to be right,” she said. “He wasn’t responding. I didn’t know if he’d race again or not. I thought we should take the eye out, and they said that was the right choice.”

The gelding returned to the backstretch in June with an uncertain future and was brought along slowly. Jagoda said she noticed daily improvement, enough that he began workouts by mid-July. On July 25, he started for the first time since May 16 and won the Samtyr Sprint Handicap at 4 1/2 furlongs. He returned a week later and finished second in a 1 1/16-mile allowance race.

In the next few weeks, he will be shipped to Hollywood Park for the fall season and be back at Los Alamitos for the fall-winter meeting, which will begin in November.

Magna Terra Smoky hasn’t been worse than third in five starts this year.

“You always talk about people who have a newfound appreciation for things--he appreciates everything,” Jagoda said. “He was happy to be back.”

First Femme, who won two stakes races in July, will be sidelined for three months because of a knee chip. The filly won the Independence Day Handicap on July 3, running 350 yards in 17.32 seconds, one of the fastest times in the nation this year. In her next start on July 24, she won the Garden Grove Stakes. By leading sire First Down Dash, First Femme was expected to be a contender in this fall’s major stakes.

According to Blane Schvaneveldt, who trains the 3-year-old, First Femme underwent knee surgery Saturday to repair a problem that developed after the Garden Grove Stakes.

“She’ll be on the shelf for a while,” Schvaneveldt said. “She’s a very fast horse. (The vets) said the knee looked good (after the operation). It was a good-sized (bone chip). She’ll get three months off and she might be back for the winter.”

Owned by the Vessels Stallion Farm of Bonsall, First Femme has won four of seven starts.

Schvaneveldt has not been pleased with the progress of Pip Pip, the undefeated 2-year-old filly who won the Miss Kindergarten Futurity on June 21 but has been sidelined since. Owned by Abigail Kawananakoa, Pip Pip stepped on her front hoof during the Miss Kindergarten, and the injury has not healed properly.

Kawananakoa had hoped to send Pip Pip to Ruidoso Downs, N.M., for the All American Futurity elimination trials Aug. 13-14. That is doubtful now, Schvaneveldt said.

“She came back lame on it (last week),” the trainer said. “It cracked a week ago, and I don’t think she’ll make the All American. I think she’ll be OK in a couple of weeks, but it’s (already) time to go to the All American.

Schvaneveldt, the nation’s leading quarter horse trainer since 1976, has not had much luck in quarter horse racing’s richest race. Last year, for example, he trained Baby Its Tonight, who had the 11th-fastest qualifying time. Only the top 10 advanced to the final.

Los Alamitos Notes

Song in My Dreams broke a streak of four second-place finishes in stakes races by winning the $10,900 Huntington Beach Stakes last Friday. The 3-year-old gelding was second in the Town Policy, Bobby Doyle and Independence Day Handicaps and in the Dash For Cash Derby. . . . Isaws Sugar Bear, the 1991 champion older mare, made her summer debut Saturday and finished second in an allowance race to Grand Package. . . . Shake Six, who won three stakes races around a turn last year, will make his 1992 debut in Thursday’s 10th race. He is being pointed toward a 870-yard stakes at Hollywood Park, which begins quarter horse racing on Aug. 21.