LOS ALAMITOS : Mega Dash Brings Success to Maldonado

For most of 1992, Jesse Maldonado trained only two quarter horses--Mega Dash and Reeds Signature.

Reeds Signature won two stakes races last summer and ran well throughout the year, and Mega Dash won two major stakes and was named the 1992 national 2-year-old gelding champion.

This year, Reeds Signature has been sent to the breeding shed, but Mega Dash will be back and is pointing to the Los Alamitos Derby in early July. He will not be a lonely horse around the barn.

Maldonado has joined with prominent owner Jens List Jr. and will train 40 horses when the Los Alamitos quarter horse season begins Friday night. Of those, 36 are List’s. Paul Reed owns Mega Dash.

“I’ve been here over 20 years and I used to have a big a stable, but I never had access to better-bred horses,” Maldonado said. “(List and I) have been talking about it since last year. It was something we didn’t just jump into.”

List operates one of the nation’s largest quarter horse operations. Aside from his racing stable, he also owns the Double Bar S Ranch in Nuevo, where he stands several stallions. Last year, he won the Governor’s Cup Futurity with First Hi Hope, a gelding who will be back this year.

Most of Maldonado’s stable will be 2- and 3-year-olds pointing for futurities and derbies, and they will have plenty of opportunities.

The meeting runs through Dec. 12, and along the way virtually every quarter horse with national championship aspirations will step onto Los Alamitos’ track. Last year, eight of the 10 horses named to year-end championships raced at either Los Alamitos or Hollywood Park. The others ran exclusively at Ruidoso Downs in New Mexico. A similar situation exists in the Arabian racing community, which has grown stronger in Southern California in the past few years.

Major races among the 54 quarter horse stakes include the Los Alamitos Derby on July 2, Vessels Maturity on July 3, Dash For Cash Futurity on July 30, Governor’s Cup Futurity on Sept. 4, Los Alamitos Championship on Sept. 18, Ed Burke Memorial Futurity on Oct. 9, Marathon Handicap on Nov. 27, Golden State Derby on Dec. 10 and the Golden State Futurity on Dec. 12.

Two of the biggest nights will be the Nov. 13 running of the Quarter Horse Breeders Classics, the quarter horse version of the Breeders’ Cup; and the Champion of Champions on Dec. 11, which has determined 14 of the last 21 quarter horse champions.

Refrigerator, who won last year’s Champion of Champions and was named world champion, is expected to defend his title. The 5-year-old gelding will spend the summer at Ruidoso Downs before arriving in California in September. He will have a new jockey this year because Kip Didericksen, his regular rider over the last three years, has retired after constant weight battles.

Also missing is jockey Jerry Yoakum, who won the riding title last winter, but was handed a one-year suspension in February after an electrical device was found in his locker in the jockey’s room.

Blane Schvaneveldt, quarter horse racing’s leading trainer, will again have a deep stable. Schvaneveldt has 245 stakes victories at Los Alamitos.

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The biggest upset of the winter-spring harness meeting was the first driving victory of Sabina Knight’s career.

Knight won last Thursday’s $15,000 California Sires Stakes for 3-year-old trotting fillies with the 10-1 shot One To Top and, in the process, defeated Eggwhite, the divisional leader.

Knight leased One To Top last fall, but didn’t start the filly until March 11. She lost her first four races to Eggwhite, in sires stakes finals and qualifying legs. In her last two starts, she finished third, but was well-beaten on both occasions.

In Thursday’s stakes final, she lagged behind the leaders until the final turn, caught Eggwhite in the final 100 yards and won by half a length. Eggwhite finished the meeting with seven victories in 10 starts. She won three stakes races during the three-month meeting, more than any other horse.

One To Top’s victory came in Knight’s sixth drive of the meeting. She had driven One To Top in her four previous races this year and believed she was improving.

“She was turned out (in late 1992), and it just takes time to get them ready,” she said. “She’s a little hot-blooded and she gets a little nervous, so I had to take my time.

“(One To Top) will be great on the mile (circumference track at Sacramento). A lot of horses are a little better on the mile.”

Knight trains nine horses, including Good Egg and Googie, who are full brothers to Eggwhite. Good Egg, a 4-year-old gelding, has won three of 11 starts this year in conditioned races; and Googie, one of the top California-bred trotters in history, is expected to start at the Sacramento meeting this summer.

Knight became involved with harness racing as a farrier. She worked with show horses, which eventually led to shoeing harness horses at local farms. From there, she moved to the track. She still shoes her own horses and a few for others, but has cut back recently on the work she does for others because of the time involved with training.

One To Top’s victory was a surprise in a season in which only nine horses won the 16 stakes for California-bred 3-year-old trotters and pacers. Cal-Aurium and Hays My Game each won two stakes for colt and gelding trotters, and Keepyourpantson and Pips Fonzo split the four stakes for colt and gelding pacers.

The only division with more than two stakes winners was the pacing fillies. Romantic Music won two stakes, and Sinali and Nuevo Yank each won one.

Romantic Music is trained by Ross Croghan, who says the filly is also bound for Sacramento, where the track will be easier on her often-sore legs.

“She’ll stay sounder up there,” he said. “The turns aren’t as tough, which will help her lameness problem.”

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Saturday night marked the conclusion of the first harness meeting at Los Alamitos managed by the California Harness Racing Assn. The CHRA took over California harness racing last January, two months after Lloyd Arnold announced he would no longer conduct meetings.

Led by Paul Reddam of Newport Beach and Perry De Luna of Culver City, the CHRA also will operate the Sacramento meeting this summer, as well as a winter meeting at Los Alamitos, beginning in December.

The CHRA meeting averaged 4,345 fans who wagered $842,511. The handle figures was much higher than last fall’s average of $584,853, which included direct competition with Hollywood Park quarter horses. It was lower than last spring’s $933,320, which had no competition.