For Hess, It’s a Stable Business : Although He’s Only 27, Stanford Grad Has Become One of Southland’s Best Trainers

How the world might have changed if Bob Hess Jr. had followed his head instead of his heart. With a degree in economics from Stanford, Hess probably could have balanced the federal budget by now.

Instead, Hess turned his common sense into horse sense. The day after graduating in June, 1987, Hess loaded up the truck and moved to Hollywood. Park, that is.

He wanted to be a horse trainer. With three horses at first, it was a struggle. But in the last year, Hess has been on a roll a craps player would envy. This summer, Hess won his second consecutive training title at Del Mar. Since April, Hess has won more races than any trainer in Southern California. More than Charlie Whittingham, Ron McAnally, D. Wayne Lukas and Gary Jones.

But the most exciting development has been River Special’s emergence as one of the best 2-year-olds in the country. River Special has won last month’s Del Mar Futurity and the Oct. 11 Norfolk Stakes at Santa Anita’s Oak Tree meeting. Now it’s on to the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile on Oct. 31 in Florida. If he wins there, River Special will become the early favorite for the 1993 Kentucky Derby.

All this activity should make Hess’ head spin, but it’s locked and focused. Hess, 27, who lives in Azusa with his wife of two years, Sheila, and 10-month-old son, Garrison, is a modest man. He realizes that in his profession, when dealing with a perishable commodity such as a racehorse, fortune can turn to famine in a hurry.

“This business is very humbling,” Hess said. “A few years ago, I went from the latter part of August until two days before Christmas without a winner. There’s a lot of guys who get hot and then fall off the planet. Hopefully, I can prevent that from happening.”

Hess’ dazzling win percentage should keep him from losing his balance. In a sport where 20% winners is considered the equivalent of a .300 batting average in baseball, Hess won with 25% of his runners at Del Mar this past summer.

And that was an off year. In 1991, when Hess won his first Del Mar training title, his horses were victorious 31% of the time.

Hess was born in Chula Vista. His father, also a horse trainer, was working at Caliente racetrack in Tijuana. That track’s grandstand, however, burned to the ground in 1970; Hess, who was 5 at the time, remembers watching “Pinochio” and hearing the fire engines roar by.

The suspension of racing at Caliente forced the Hess family to move to Northern California. Bob Hess Sr. has remained there, where he trains at Bay Meadows and Golden Gate Fields. In 1983, when Bob Jr. had graduated from high school, he would take a few of his dad’s horses to Del Mar each summer.

“My dad said I had to learn on my own, make mistakes,” Hess said. “Mistakes can help, as long as you learn. I still make plenty now, but I try to realize them instead of ignoring them.”

Hess was a promising baseball player in high school. He was a pitcher, but a rotator cuff injury short-circuited his career. He went to Stanford on an academic scholarship and was an infielder on the freshman baseball team. “I was more a bench-warmer than anything,” Hess said. After one year, he concentrated on his studies and the horses.

“My heart was (at the track),” Hess said. “I wanted to be a horse trainer.”

When Hess graduated, he and his father decided to operate on two fronts--Hess pere in the Bay Area, Hess fils in Southern California.

“I went to a party the night I graduated, and the next morning, I drove a two-horse trailer to Hollywood Park,” Hess said.

It took a while for Hess to get attention. The first two horses he ran finished last. One was claimed out of the race by another trainer. The other bled from his nose.

Now Hess has 32 horses in training at Santa Anita and 16 at Hollywood Park. There are many mornings when he leaves his Azusa home well before sunrise, checks on his horses at Santa Anita, drives across town to Hollywood Park in Inglewood, checks on those horses, then returns to Santa Anita. All by 9 a.m.

The hard work is paying off. Hess has attracted the attention of some of California’s leading owners and breeders. John Mabee, chairman of Del Mar Thoroughbred Club and breeder-owner of Best Pal--who was leading contender for Horse of the Year before he was injured--gave Hess two horses this year. One of them is River Special.

“The best way to get horses is to win,” Hess said. “I’ve tried to maintain a high win percentage, and now I’ve got enough starters to win enough races where people notice. It’s snowballed in a beneficial way.”

The barn has more claiming horses than top-class runners, but the balance is teetering from quantity to quality. In addition to River Special, Hess has stakes horses such as the sprinter Slerp, turf horse Mirisi and the middle-distance specialist Mr. Integrity. All should race at Santa Anita in the next few months.

“It’s a tough business,” Hess said. “Right now, we’re on the bright side.”