THOROUGHBRED RACING : Town Caper’s Fairplex Victory Continues a Stute Tradition

The Stute name is all over the record book for the Los Angeles County Fair in Pomona. Going into the 55th season at what is now called Fairplex Park, Mel Stute had won 110 races, tying him with Ted West for No. 1 in the standings. Stute has also saddled 33 stakes winners, 10 more than the next best trainer.

Six of Stute’s stakes victories have been in the Foothill Stakes, a traditional opening-day feature at Pomona, but on Thursday, while his 3-year-old gelding, Westcot, finished eighth in the 6 1/2-furlong race, it was another Stute who landed in the winner’s circle. Warren Stute, Mel’s older brother at 71, brought Town Caper to the fair for an unexpected victory.

Town Caper got a late-running ride from Alex Solis to register a two-length victory over Rubin’s Champion as Fairplex launched a 19-day season that’s a madcap mixture of thoroughbreds, quarter horses and the Appaloosa breed.

Less then an hour after Town Caper’s victory, Solis became the winning jockey of the day’s other thoroughbred stake when the stewards disqualified the first-place horse, Ballerina Gal, because of interference in the last 20 yards of the Bustles and Bows.

Pat Valenzuela was whipping right-handed from the sixteenth pole home, but Ballerina Gal still drifted out toward the middle of the track, and brushed Frigid Coed just before the two fillies hit the wire.

So while trouble meant victory for Solis in the later feature, in the Foothill Stakes he had the winning horse partly because he avoided trouble on the wicked first turn of Fairplex’s egg-shaped five-furlong course.

“I was very fortunate on that first turn,” Solis said of Town Caper’s unimpeded trip.

Not so fortunate was Boss Soss, a double stakes winner last year, who was carried in the direction of the midway by Westcot, the unmannerly Mel Stute runner.

Town Caper, who was fourth after a half-mile, finished two lengths ahead of Rubin’s Champion, with Roman Image, the 9-10 favorite, flattening out in the 660-foot stretch and finishing fourth. Town Caper, clocked in 1:17, paid $12.60 to win.

Jockeys with the reputation of a Valenzuela seldom ride at the fair, but Solis said that he will be back for a day or two before the meet ends on Oct. 3.

“I’ll be riding up North (at Bay Meadows) a few days, too,” Solis said. “The break (between Del Mar and Oak Tree at Santa Anita) will give me a chance to take my wife to Las Vegas and my four kids to Disneyland. And oh, yeah: I’ve got to clean the house.”

Warren Stute’s instructions to Solis, who had never ridden Town Caper before, were to give the 3-year-old colt some time at the start of the race.

“I just waited, and then he responded when I asked him to,” Solis said.

Town Caper is owned by Pat and Jim Thompson of San Jacinto. Warren Stute has been training for Pat Thompson and her father, former California Horse Racing Board chairman Neil Curry, for close to 40 years. Stute plans to bring back Town Caper quickly, to run in the Pomona Derby Trial Stakes at Fairplex a week from Saturday. Stute’s main objective this fall is the Breeders’ Cup Distaff at Santa Anita on Nov. 6, with Magical Maiden, a stakes winner at Del Mar, expected to run. Magical Maiden was a 31-1 shot who ran third in the Breeders’ Cup race last year at Gulfstream Park.

Ballerina Gal, still a maiden but the 11-10 favorite in the Bustles and Bows off her third-place finish behind Sardula and Phone Chatter in the Del Mar Debutante, finished a nose in front of Frigid Coed before the disqualification. Frigid Coed paid $6.60 as the second choice, running 6 1/2 furlongs in 1:18 2/5 on an uncharacteristically cool day at the fair.

“She pulled herself up when we made the lead,” Valenzuela said. “Then we touched very lightly.”

Solis thought he was aboard the better filly. “The other filly came out at the three-eighths pole and we lost about a length and a half then,” the jockey said. “Then we were bumped again at the sixteenth. A clean trip and we would have won outright.”

Horse Racing Notes

The third race on the Fairplex Park card Saturday will be the telecast of the $500,000 Woodward Stakes from Belmont Park. The speed-loving Bertrando, wire-to-wire winner of the Pacific Classic at Del Mar, is an 8-5 favorite, running as an entry with Missionary Ridge, who has earned almost $400,000 this year without winning a race, finishing second in the Pacific Classic in his last start. . . . Devil His Due is next on the morning line at 2-1, and others running are Valley Crossing, West By West and Miner’s Mark. . . . Frigid Coed, a $12,000 yearling purchase, is owned by the Mace Siegel family and trained by Brian Mayberry, whose forte is winning with 2-year-old fillies. Frigid Coed’s win Thursday came in her first start since running fifth at Hollywood Park on July 10 in the Landaluce Stakes, which was won by the Mayberry-trained Rhapsodic.