LOS ALAMITOS : New Zealand Remains the Land of Milk and Money for Gorov

The list of New Zealand-breds that have found the winner’s circle in recent years at Los Alamitos reads like a who’s who of California harness racing in the 1990s.

Horses such as Mercury, Stand By, Robbie Hest, Cool Charm Girl, Star Legacy, Kenwood Don, Popsicle, Kurahaupo Pride, Vance Lobell and Jiffy’s Girl have been imported to California and won major races or set track records. Some of the New Zealand horses have stayed in California for several seasons, while others raced only a few times before being sold to buyers in other cities.

This year, even though the current meeting is only three weeks old, New Zealand-bred pacers are already having an impact. The latest is a 6-year-old mare, Greta Lobell, who has won two of her three starts this year, including the invitational for fillies and mares on Friday.

Greta Lobell is owned by Elliott Gorov of Laguna Niguel, whose list of imports in the past few years includes such major winners as Mary Franco, Sherman and Nicola Mary. Last summer, Gorov sent driver James Lackey on a scouting trip to New Zealand. Lackey, a perennial top-10 driver at Los Alamitos, returned with only two mares--Greta Lobell and another 6-year-old mare, Yes My Lady, who finished sixth behind Greta Lobell on Friday.

Lackey spent two weeks in New Zealand last June. He saw Yes My Lady win twice, including a race against Greta Lobell. On the last day of the trip, he had a chance to “test-drive” Greta Lobell.

“Yes My Lady won both starts that I saw and I got the impression watching her that she had a real strong will, a good attitude,” Lackey said. “Greta Lobell showed reasonably well. She raced pretty good against Yes My Lady and she didn’t cost a whole lot of money.

“I trained (Greta Lobell) on a half-mile track. I went slow for three-quarters of a mile and she came a huge (final) quarter and she felt strong. Sometimes you get fooled, but the price was right.”

Gorov paid $13,500 for Greta Lobell, his cheapest purchase in New Zealand.

“She’d had eight starts (in New Zealand) and had gotten sick,” Gorov said. “Sometimes you hear that they are sick and it’s difficult to believe it, but I think she was always sick.”

After arriving in California, Greta Lobell spent a month in training at a Hemet farm and then a month training at Sacramento. She was supposed to accompany Lackey on the Alberta circuit, but when she came down with a slight sickness, he sent her to trainer Stu Boschman at Cloverdale Raceway, near Vancouver, British Columbia.

There, Gorov and Lackey realized what they had purchased. Greta Lobell reeled off five wins in a row and by the end of the year had won seven of her nine North American starts.

On Friday, Great Lobell led from start to finish, even though that wasn’t the game plan. In her first Los Alamitos victory on Jan. 14, she stalked the early leaders, took the lead on the backstretch, and won by 5 1/2 lengths. Her time of 1:54 1/5 was the fastest mile of her career. Lackey was hoping to come from behind on Friday, but wound up on the lead.

The victory came against the best older mares in California, including Stand By, Brilliant Colors and Cool Charm Girl. Stand By, an 8-year-old New Zealand-bred mare, won more than $102,000 in California and Illinois last year. She’s winless in three starts at Los Alamitos this year, but has not been worse than third.

Brilliant Colors is an American-bred who won the first two invitationals for fillies and mares this year. Cool Charm Girl, another New Zealand-bred, is 11, and although she has been overmatched in three starts this year, she had a career-best time of 1:53 3/5 last summer at Sacramento.

“That’s a great field we beat,” Gorov said. “You could go anywhere in the United States, (except) The Meadowlands, with those mares and win. When you race that race 10 times, you’ll get a lot of different winners.”

Gorov is maintaining a conservative approach for the future. Nicola Mary will race again soon, which will allow him to rest one mare each week and race the other two. If Greta Lobell continues to improve, a trip to The Meadowlands is a possibility.

Lackey might be headed back to New Zealand in the next month. His record for his last crop of imports is perfect--two winning mares, both of whom have earned spots in the top class for fillies and mares at Los Alamitos.

“You’re just trying to buy horses worth the money,” Lackey said. “There’s no possible way I could have thought they would be doing this. It’s just extremely good luck.”

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Effective Thursday, purses for overnight races have been cut 20% as a result of poor mutuel handle. Through Saturday, the average handle was $705,891, roughly $150,000 below expectations.

The 1993 winter-spring harness meeting averaged $842,511 and purses for this year’s meeting were based on an average handle of $850,000. Fred Kuebler, the general manager of the Premier Harness Racing Assn., a consortium of harness owners and breeders leasing Los Alamitos for harness racing, said the purse structure will be re-evaluated throughout the meeting.

“You have to keep the purse payments under control when you have a 12-week meeting,” he said. “If we had a year-long meet like the quarter horses, we could ride it out.

“It takes a couple of months to get these horses going, and you suffer when your lead-in time is only two weeks.”

The harness meeting wasn’t announced until mid-December, giving horsemen only three weeks to prepare their horses. Many horses hadn’t started since last summer at Sacramento and only now have had a couple of starts.

The betting handle on Friday and Saturday was the best weekend of the meet, a reflection of the number of horses ready to race on a weekly basis. Friday’s handle of $876,011 was the best of the first three weeks of the meet and Saturday’s handle of $814,342 was the best Saturday of the meeting. The figures are roughly $200,000 less than weekend figures from last year.

“We’ll take another look at the purses after the sixth week and we might put it back up,” Kuebler said. “(Friday) night improved and (Saturday) night looked pretty good.”

The purse cuts affected all classes. Maidens, who raced for $2,700 last week, will have purses of $2,200 this week. Saturday’s invitational was an $11,000 race last week, but will be only $8,800 this week.

Los Alamitos Notes

California-bred stakes will resume on Thursday and continue through the week with divisions for 3- and 4-year-old pacers and trotters. Thursday’s program will feature two stakes for trotters, including a $26,000 division for 4-year-old fillies that drew four horses. Eggwhite, who won the California Breeders Stakes two weeks ago and finished fourth against males last week, will be a heavy favorite. Presented as the fourth race, the stakes will have win and exacta wagering only. There will be 14 races on Thursday, including 11 live and three simulcast from The Meadowlands.