LOS ALAMITOS : Trainer Monkman Hits Full Stride After New Claiming Price Outlook

Don Monkman has had better luck on the racetrack this year than he has had shoeing horses.

Monkman’s small stable has won seven of 32 races at Los Alamitos in the first month of harness racing. Last spring, he won that many races over three months. Monkman’s only drawback this year was a torn Achilles’ tendon suffered in January while he was shoeing one of his horses.

The injury kept him from driving until two weeks ago, but a special cast enabled him to drive in morning workouts and care for the horses at the barn.

“I was shoeing a horse and my foot got caught in a shoeing mat,” he said. “I went one way, the horse went the other and my foot stayed.

“The healing is a slow process. I had a cast for three weeks, and I had special shoe built and it helped. Things are going good now. The tendon isn’t quite stretched to where it should be. I don’t have any pain, but I don’t have full mobility.”

Monkman trains eight horses, including Incoordination, an Australian-bred pacer, who won five races in Australia last year. Incoordination made his debut here Feb. 20 and was in contention for most of the mile, but went off-stride in the stretch and almost fell. Since then, Monkman has given the 8-year-old gelding a qualifying race and entered him in Thursday’s 11th race, a $4,500 conditioned event.

Incoordination is owned by Bob Abbott of Garden Grove, who also co-owns Tsarina Bret and The Princess, both of whom Monkman trains. Tsarina Bret won her first seven starts last year, but is winless in her last five races. On Friday, she was second in the fillies’ and mares’ preferred division, her best race since the winning streak ended last September.

Most of Monkman’s stable consists of claimers, ranging from The Princess, who races for $10,000, to Rodelle at $2,500. Monkman, a Canadian, acknowledging that he underestimated the caliber of California harness racing last year, when several of his horses had to be dropped several thousand dollars in claiming price before they were competitive. This year, he dropped them immediately. All In Good Time, who raced for $7,000 in Calgary last year, won two claiming races for $5,000 in February.

“Last year, I brought some $20- and $30,000 claimers and they should have been in for 10 or $15,000,” he said. “It took me a while to realize that and it cost me. This year I’ve put them where they belong.”

Last spring, his first season in California, was highlighted by the 3-year-old pacer Scruffy Hanover, who won a $25,000 elimination for the Shelly Goudreau Memorial Pace, but broke stride in the $250,000 final. Despite the disappointing results, he decided to return this year. The winter weather on the Edmonton-Calgary circuit near his New Sarepta, Alberta, home was also a factor.

“There were 20 days there when it never got above 20 degrees,” he said. “These old bones won’t take it anymore.”

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Driver Terry Kerr, winless in 51 races in February, won three in a row on Thursday and became the 23rd driver to win 4,500 races.

Kerr ended the slump with Downwyn Virginia, a 5-year-old mare he also trains. She appeared on her way to victory two weeks ago when she went off-stride and finished seventh in an eight-horse field.

Kerr got his second victory with 6-year-old gelding Nacho Camacho in a conditioned trot. He had also been a contender the week before, but went off-stride in the stretch and finished fourth.

“Every time I turned around something else (was going wrong),” Kerr said. “I thought Downwyn Virginia was a winner the week before.

“As soon as she won (on Thursday), I called my wife and said, ‘Get to the track.’ She got here just in time.”

Kerr won two races on Feb. 10, but managed only seven seconds in his next 51 races. He added another victory Friday and is fourth in the drivers’ standings with 16, 17 behind Steve Warrington.

“I’m glad I have the monkey off my back,” he said. “Now I can go for 5,000.”

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The California Harness Racing Assn., which is leasing Los Alamitos for the harness meeting, approached California Horse Racing Board officials Friday about a proposed simulcasting program of East Coast harness races.

The simulcasts would cover the two hours between the afternoon thoroughbred program and the evening harness races and would include five or six races from the Meadowlands in East Rutherford, N.J. It would conclude before the live Los Alamitos program began at 7:45 p.m.

“We discussed it privately (with CHRB members) and they seemed in favor,” said Perry De Luna, the secretary-treasurer of the CHRA.

De Luna hopes the CHRB will approve the simulcasting in the next few weeks instead of waiting for the next monthly meeting at the end of March. The Los Alamitos harness meeting ends in late April.

“It would definitely help our bottom line,” De Luna said. “Right now, it’s hard to say (if this will be a profitable meeting). Simulcasting would make it profitable.”

Los Alamitos Notes

Eggwhite, who slowed to a crawl over a sloppy track on Feb. 18, returned to the winter’s circle Thursday, winning the $15,000 California Sires Stakes for 3-year-old trotting fillies. It was the filly’s 11th victory in 13 starts and avenged her loss to Pert Aries in the Feb. 18 qualifying leg, when she was beaten by 13 lengths.

In other sires stakes finals, Hays My Game won the 3-year-old trotting colts’ division, Sinali won the 3-year-old pacing fillies’ division and Pip’s Fonzo won the 3-year-old pacing colts’ division. The next leg for the Sires Stakes begins March 11-12, although a few of the horses will appear in overnight races this week. . . . Captain Paul, one of the top trotters of last summer’s meeting at Sacramento, will return in Thursday’s eighth race.