LOS ALAMITOS HARNESS RACING : Some Changes Will Be in Store When Meeting Begins on Friday

As is the rest of the Southland, harness racing is looking forward to sunshine.

The sport had an erratic ride last year, with a strong spring meeting followed by disappointments last summer in Sacramento and last fall at Los Alamitos. It also needed a new backer after Lloyd Arnold, who promoted harness racing at Los Alamitos for three years, retired.

Last November, two horsemen, Perry De Luna of Culver City and Paul Reddam of Newport Beach, announced that they had reached an agreement with Los Alamitos’ owners--Arnold, Chris Bardis and Ed Allred--to conduct a harness meeting this spring. The 13-week session will begin Friday and continue through April 24.

A few changes will be obvious on opening night. The first race is set for 7:45 p.m., instead of 7, and races will be held every 17 minutes, in the manner of harness programs on the East Coast. The track has installed a detention barn on the backstretch where horses will be quarantined eight hours before they race.

A horse shortage that plagued the fall meeting hasn’t been totally resolved. Fred Kuebler, who will serve as general manager, says it might take a few weeks for the fields to fill normally because many horses couldn’t train because of the recent rains.

“We’ll probably have about 500,” he said. “Three weeks into the meeting, we’ll be fine. We might have to run a couple back Wednesday to Saturday.”

The average handle last fall was $584,853, but Kuebler believes that will increase by about $200,000.

“If we get a break in the weather, we ought to do well,” he said. “We’ve based the purses on $750,000. We want to come in consistently and not overpay the purses. They’re good compared to what we ended with (in November). I think it would be wonderful to be able to raise the purses.”

*

For the first time since 1979, a 3-year-old quarter horse has defeated older horses in a winter running of the Horsemen’s Quarter Horse Racing Assn. Handicap.

Four Forty Blast, who finished second in the Golden State Futurity against 2-year-olds last month, beat a strong cast of older horses in Saturday’s $75,000 HQHRA Handicap for his second stakes victory. He joined Moon Lark, the 1979 winner, as the only 3-year-olds to win the race during a winter running.

In 1988, Wicked Dash, a 3-year-old filly, won the race, but it was held in the fall, when 3-year-olds are more likely to challenge older horses successfully. The HQHRA Handicap was run in the fall during the late 1980s because the quarter horse meeting was not held during the winter. The last three years, however, the race has been held in January or February, as it was when it originated in the 1970s.

Four Forty Blast, owned by Jim Streelman and Danny Boer, has won six of 12 starts and was well traveled as a 2-year-old. In addition to racing at Hollywood Park and Los Alamitos, he also ran at Remington Park, Okla., and Ruidoso Downs, N.M., but won no major races at either track. He later won the California Futurity at Hollywood Park.

Streelman and Boer considered running the gelding against older horses after the Golden State Futurity. They solidified their plans when Refrigerator, the odds-on favorite to be voted 1992 World Champion Quarter Horse on Jan. 24, returned to Texas.

“I was never concerned about (Four Forty Blast’s) age,” trainer Carlos Lopez said.

Four Forty Blast, who was coupled in the wagering with his 4-year-old brother, Golden State Derby winner Holland Ease, led throughout the 440 yards and finished three-quarters of a length in front of Shawnes Diamond. The latter was the only horse to beat Refrigerator in 1992, having done so in the Go Man Go Handicap at Hollywood Park.

Streelman gave much of the credit to jockey Eddie Garcia, who won five races Saturday. The owners haven’t completed a schedule for the rest of the year, but have several options.

“He’ll probably get two months off and be back in California for May and June,” Streelman said.

*

Griswold retained his Marathon Handicap title Friday, scoring his 10th stakes victory.

The 7-year-old gelding, owned by the Legacy Ranch and trained by Daryn Charlton, has run the four fastest times ever at 870 yards and is the favorite to be voted 1992 distance champion on the basis of three stakes victories last year. He also won the title in 1991, when he set a world 870-yard record of 43.99 seconds.

The $100,000 Marathon Handicap, richest 870-yard event in quarter horse racing, was Griswold’s second stakes victory of the meeting. He also won the Katella Handicap in late November before losing the Bull Rastus Handicap to the Appaloosa gelding Wing It in mid-December. Wing It wasn’t allowed in the Marathon because of a dispute between the HQHRA and the California Horse Racing Board over thoroughbreds and Appaloosas competing against quarter horses, so it was an all-quarter horse race.

Griswold, the 2-5 favorite, battled for the lead with The Big Chill and Speedy Lunch on the backstretch before pulling away on the turn. At the top of the stretch, Griswold led by three lengths, a margin he widened to 4 3/4 at the wire. The time of 45.01 seconds was exceptional considering the sloppy track.

Griswold’s 1993 campaign will be directed toward maintaining a busy second half of the year, when the majority of the top 870-yard stakes are run. Pete Parrella, who owns Legacy Ranch along with Jerry Moreland, hopes for a rematch with Wing It this year, possibly in a match race, but the main objective is winning the distance title again.

“If everything goes right, we’ll go for the three-peat,” Parrella said.

*

The Los Alamitos quarter horse meeting concluded with improved attendance and handle figures. The average handle of $1,058,773 was higher than last winter’s $985,604 but lower than the 1990-91 season’s $1,086,994. Attendance improved 3.2%.

Blane Schvaneveldt led the trainers’ standings with 36 victories, but had to pay a $1,000 fine for excessive use of Butazolidin last weekend. Jerry Yoakum was the leading rider with 36 victories, but was arrested at the track Saturday, closing night, for possession of a controlled substance. He also faces California Horse Racing Board charges of possessing an electrical device used to stimulate horses. The so-called “buzzer” was found in his locker by investigators. Such devices are used to shock a horse into running faster.

The mother-daughter combination of Lynn and Lynette Ashby tied for the Arabian title with eight victories; Guillermo Gutierrez led the Arabian jockeys with 10.

The stewards also announced that the purse of the sixth race on Nov. 27 has been redistributed because of the presence of Procaine in the postrace urine sample of Inscription, the second-place finisher. The gelding is trained by Frank Monteleone and owned by his assistant, Linda Mikus.