LOS ALAMITOS : Eastern Scooter Might Be Ready to Make Stakes Breakthrough

A streak of injuries and missed opportunities could end this weekend for Eastern Scooter, who is among the favorites for the $150,000 California Pace for colts and geldings.

The colt, owned by Hiroshi Yamamoto of Palos Verdes Estates, won an open race for 3-year-olds Saturday in 1:56 4/5, extending his winning streak to four. He spent most of September at Pocono Downs in Pennsylvania, winning minor races, each one a little faster than the one before. Yamamoto, who owns horses racing on both coasts, is hoping that a change of scenery will help change the colt’s luck in major races.

Eastern Scooter raced with the top 2-year-olds last year in some of New Jersey’s biggest races. He won three of 19 starts and more than $39,000 last year, but his best finish in a stake was second in the New Jersey Sires Stakes.

This year, he has won six of 13 races despite injuries.

“He’s been very unlucky,” Yamamoto said. “At 2, he raced against (leading horses) Sportsmaster and Fake Left, and was second in the New Jersey Sires, but he went lame and we lost a shot at some nice races.”

After a winter’s rest in Orlando, Eastern Scooter went back to the Meadowlands in New Jersey and won in a personal best 1:56 1/5, but again suffered an injury.

“It took us two months to find out what was wrong and three months to get him ready,” Yamamoto said. “There have been so many unhappy memories. I don’t know if he’s good enough (to win Saturday’s race), but I think he’ll be competitive.”

The California Pace is the richest race of the summer-fall meeting for 3-year-olds. Other probable starters include All That Rhythm, Humstinger, Picture Perfect, Skytel, Stringing Along, Vacationing and You Better You Bet.

Western Hanover, who won the first two legs of the Pacific Triple Crown, was listed as a probable, but lost the Little Brown Jug last week and is not expected to run. Humstinger, who finished third behind Western Hanover in last month’s Messenger Stakes at Rosecroft Raceway in Maryland, is in Ross Croghan’s barn and won a qualifying race Friday in 1:55 3/5.

“He’s racing good right now and better than the early season,” Croghan said. “He’s gotten over his little problems.”

Croghan might have the favorite in Friday’s $75,000 California Pace for fillies in Whimsically, who is owned by Croghan, Michael Schwartz and Don Gressman. After winning a minor stake in early August, she was shipped to California and has raced well against older mares at the invitational level.

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One Bad Boy has been winless in seven California starts this year, but his second-place finish behind Odds Against in Saturday’s $150,000 American Pacing Classic was a pleasant surprise for trainer Nick Sodano.

Sodano put the 4-year-old horse on Lasix because One Bad Boy had bled from the lungs in his last few starts, including a fifth and eighth in qualifying legs for the American Pacing Classic.

Driver Steve Warrington, who has driven One Bad Boy in all of his California starts, believed that the horse was pulling himself up before the end of his races because of the bleeding. In the American pacing Classic, Warrington noticed that he raced well in the stretch for the first time in several weeks.

“He knew at the end of the mile that the bleeding hurts, so he pulled himself up,” Warrington said. “I think if he’d had Lasix a few weeks ago he might have been closer.”

His best finishes in California, before Saturday’s final, were two second-place finishes behind stablemate TK’s Skipper in invitationals.

“I hesitated to put him on Lasix (for the American Pacing Classic), but it was a quick turnaround,” Sodano said. “I knew he was better when we came (to California), but he’d disappointed us from the start.”

Sodano also finished fourth in the American Pacing Classic with TK’s Skipper, who won the 1990 race in track-record time of 1:51 2/5. TK’s Skipper was sidelined for most of last year because of injury, but has won five of 31 races since returning. The 7-year-old is approaching $1 million in earnings.

Sodano plans to rotate TK’s Skipper and One Bad Boy in the invitational class every other week until the end of the meeting. Retaining his title in the American Pacing Classic was Sodano’s hope for TK’s Skipper this season.

“I don’t think the old guy ever disappoints me because he’s been through so much,” Sodano said. “I never thought he’d make it back. I know when he goes out, there he gives me 100%.”