FAIRPLEX : Flores Carves Out His Niche

On the way from the track to the jockeys’ room after a race at Fairplex Park last weekend, David Flores was asked for an autograph by a small boy.

Flores stopped and signed his name on the cover of the program. At Fairplex, Flores is numero uno, a jockey who has won close to 200 races since 1989. Flores shared the riding title at the Los Angeles County Fair meeting in 1989, and when the fair’s 19-day season ended Monday, he added his fourth consecutive outright championship.

Since the fair first ran races in 1933, no jockey has dominated like Flores in the last five years. With 42 winners this season, he’s increased his total to 185, which ranks him behind only Paco Mena in the career standings. Mena won four riding titles at the fair, the last coming in 1981, and leads the list with 248 winners.

On Wednesday, Flores will return to Southern California’s major racing circuit, with the opening of the Oak Tree season at Santa Anita, and it’s there that he would like to continue the winning. The transition is difficult, because the fixtures in the Santa Anita jockey colony, which includes some of the best riders in the nation. They are well-rested and hungry after virtually skipping the Fairplex Park interlude on the local schedule.

A year ago, Flores rode at Oak Tree, failed to win a stakes race and posted 17 winners, which left him in a seventh-place tie in the standings. The kids looking for autographs were chasing Kent Desormeaux, Gary Stevens, Chris McCarron, Eddie Delahoussaye and the other more established riders back to the jockeys’ room.

With seven stakes winners at Fairplex, Flores increased his total to 31, which moved him into second place in that category behind Mena with 34.

“I worked hard for the whole meet,” Flores said. “Maybe what I did will help me get some business from the barns at Santa Anita.”

Before Fairplex, Flores was not having the kind of success he enjoyed in 1991-92, when he rode horses that earned almost $13 million. His mainstay then was Marquetry, who propelled him into the national limelight by winning the 1991 Hollywood Gold Cup, a $1-million race, at 27-1.

*

Even before the final day of the season Monday at Fairplex, the Pomona track had broken its betting records.

Counting off-track betting, Fairplex had a handle of $71.3 million, an increase of 8%. Overall attendance was a record 328,000, a 3.5% increase.

“It’s been a fantastic meet,” fair president Ralph Hinds said.

The California Horse Racing Board has delayed approving next year’s racing calendar, with hints that there will be cutbacks in total racing days.

“We’ve applied for the same 19 days, and I would think that we will get them,” Hinds said. “I have no reason to believe that we won’t.”