LOS ALAMITOS : Rename It Schvaneveldt Handicap

Blane Schvaneveldt’s string of six consecutive victories in the Shue Fly Handicap appeared impossible to beat when it ended in 1989.

But this is another decade and Schvaneveldt is halfway to tying his record. Last Saturday, two horses he trains, Make Mine Bud and Ima Ladys Alibi, hit the wire a nose apart, giving the trainer his third consecutive victory in the 350-yard race for older quarter horses. Schvaneveldt also won the race in 1990 and 1992. It wasn’t run in 1991.

Make Mine Bud, the winner in the $20,000 race, is a 4-year-old colt who almost didn’t make it to the races this year. He won two allowance races last winter, but was turned out in January after a leg problem kept him out of the Horsemen’s Quarter Horse Racing Assn. Handicap.

Owners Bobby Cox and Herb Graham took the colt to Texas and bred him to a few mares. Schvaneveldt had to talk the owners into returning Make Mine Bud to the races.

“I didn’t think they’d run him, but they sent him back to me at the first of April,” Schvaneveldt said. “I think he’ll make a good one.”

Make Mine Bud, a winner of five of seven starts and four consecutive races, is by The Signature out of Make Mine Cash, who earned more than $1.1-million racing in the early 1980s.

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Griswold is after his third consecutive distance championship this year, but the 7-year-old gelding might take a different path.

Griswold, owned by Legacy Ranch, has won 10 of 16 starts at more than 870 and 880 yards since December of 1990. Included are victories in the prestigious Marathon Handicap and the Endurance Handicap last Friday. His defeats include a $100,000 match race against Valiant Pete, a thoroughbred, at Santa Anita in 1991.

In the 1980s, Griswold was a stakes winner at shorter distances, including a victory in the Governor’s Cup Derby in 1989 and a third in the Champion of Champions that year.

Consequently, trainer Daryn Charlton and Pete Parrella of Legacy Ranch are considering juggling Griswold’s 1993 schedule to include races at all distances. In his last start of less than 870 yards, Griswold finished fourth in the 400-yard Z. Wayne Griffin Director’s Handicap at Hollywood Park last September, but was moved up to third after a disqualification.

This year, he has won both starts at 870 yards, including the Marathon Handicap last January. His next race might be the Table Tennis Handicap at 870 yards in early July or the 400-yard Go Man Go Handicap in early August.

“We’re toying around with a few ideas,” Parrella said. “We might run him short. He’s pretty sharp. He worked (350 yards in) 17.9 seconds (on May 1).”

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With two stakes victories in as many races this spring, TC Tomtyr has joined an elite class of Arabians--winners of more than $100,000.

TC Tomtyr won the Sierra Knights Handicap over six furlongs last month. Then Saturday, he won the Markel California Classic over 1 1/8 miles by five lengths and earned $6,545, pushing his earnings to $106,254.

TC Tomtyr, who is owned by Tahnoon Bin Zayed and trained by Yancey Carter, won the Emirates Championship in the United Arab Emirates last year, and that race is recognized by American officials. In the United States, he has won 10 of 17 starts and finished second five times.

In the Markel California Classic, he was ridden by Carlos Arias, who splits his time between the afternoon thoroughbreds at Hollywood Park and the Arabians at Los Alamitos.

“I used to think NBR Seykret Cache was the best horse I’ve ever ridden, but now I don’t know,” Arias said. “Usually when they leave (the gate), I have to throw an anchor on him, but now I can do anything I want with him, that’s how relaxed he is.”

Zayed owns two other leading older Arabians, Minos and Calin De Louve, who have won stakes this year. Minos edged TC Tomtyr last February in a stake at Phoenix, and Calin De Louve won one in April at Delaware Park in Wilmington, Del.

TC Tomtyr wasn’t the only member of the $100,000 club racing at Los Alamitos last weekend. Fryga and Maple Sugar, both trained by John Burger, finished first and second in the Halali Distaff Classic on Sunday, a 1 1/16-mile race for fillies and mares.

Fryga, a 6-year-old mare, won by a head over Maple Sugar after appearing beaten at the head of the stretch. Jockey Guillermo Gutierrez’s first stakes victory pushed Fryga’s earnings to $112,794. Maple Sugar, a 7-year-old mare, has earned $105,592.

Los Alamitos Notes

French Viking won the $40,000 Los Alamitos Appaloosa Derby last Saturday. It was the 3-year-old gelding’s first start since winning a maiden race for $6,250 claimers in October. Wing It, who defeated Griswold in the Bull Rastus Handicap last December, won the $10,000 Bull Nunneley Handicap on Friday, running 4 1/2 furlongs in 50 3/5 seconds, a fifth of a second off his 1990 track record. . . . Last Friday’s mutuel handle of $1,406,762 was the highest of the quarter horse meeting. Saturday’s handle of $1,178,860, included a $100,000 show bet on TC Tomtyr that originated from Las Vegas. As a result, there was a minus show pool of $20,279. Trials for the Kindergarten and Miss Kindergarten Futurities are Friday and Saturday.