LOS ALAMITOS : After Four Stakes Victories in a Row, Lil Eggie Finds Herself Alone at Top

It’s been a lonely year for driver Frank Sherren and the 3-year-old trotter Lil Eggie.

Lonely at the top. Sherren has driven Lil Eggie to four stakes victories in as many starts this year and has watched the filly improve in each start. It also has him wondering how she will do against horses from other parts of the nation when Sherren takes her to the Mid-west.

“I think she had a little left at the finish,” Sherren said. “It’s hard when you’re racing by yourself. They kind of relax.

“By the summer, when its warm, we’ll see what she can do. She’s done what we’ve asked her to do so far with little effort.”

Lil Eggie, a full-sister to Eggwhite, the star 3-year-old trotting filly of 1993, has clearly been best of a small class of California-breds trotting fillies from the 1991 crop. Her winning times, though, have held up against others in history. She holds the track record for 2-year-old trotting fillies at Cal-Expo in Sacramento, breaking Eggwhite’s record.

At Los Alamitos this year, she has had three races on fast tracks and each one has been faster than the previous, including an easy victory in 2:02 2/5 on Thursday in a $15,000 division of the California Sires Stakes.

“She got pushed a little early (on Thursday), so she went a little faster,” Sherren said. “I didn’t want her to go 100 miles per hour, but she’s so good I can do what I want. I don’t want to say these are easy races, but they’re easier than other tracks. If I took her anywhere else right now, she’d have to be in the invitational because she’s got so much money ($47,500 in earnings) and so many wins (nine).”

Sherren trains the filly for his parents, Jack and Ann Sherren, and for Northern California breeders Jim and Virginia Batagelos. The two couples also owned Eggwhite.

Frank Sherren says Lil Eggie will race a few more times at Los Alamitos before the meeting ends on April 2 and then race a few times at Sacramento, if a meeting occurs there this summer. After that, she has stakes engagements at tracks in Lexington, Ky., New Jersey and Chicago.

“A trotting filly is hard to place because they have the least amount of stakes races,” he said. “Pacing colts have a zillion of stakes.”

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Six victories in 10 starts this year have given the 4-year-old trotter Hays My Game every reason to stake his claim as the top older trotter at Los Alamitos this year.

Hays My Game has won five of his last seven starts, including the $23,060 Electioneer Futurity against his own age group in late January. But what he has done since has set him apart.

He has routinely defeated older horses in the invitational division, which seldom numbers more than six horses each week. The highlight of the season came on Feb. 5, when Hays My Game trotted a mile in a meet best 1:58 4/5.

Owned by Kenneth Smith of Brawley, Calif. and trained and driven by Rick Plano, Hays My Game won Friday’s invitational trot by 1 3/4 lengths against the six best older trotters at the track--Star Hangover, Gaelic King, Always The One, Armbro Laughter, Gotcha Spirit and Joe’s Birthday.

Hays My Game’s was the easiest of victories on Friday, a turnaround from his race on March 4. On Friday, Plano guided the son of Camp David to the lead going into the first turn and was never challenged through modest fractions.

It didn’t hurt that Armbro Laughter, who beat Hays My Game in the March 4 race, went off-stride in the final turn and was well-beaten. The final time of 1:59 2/5 was one of Hays My Game’s fastest of the year.

“He wasn’t himself (on March 4),” Plano said. “He got roughed up a little bit and he never got a breather. He had to go to the front and (Armbro Laughter) got a perfect trip.

“He’s a good horse and he’s been that way from the start (of the year),” Plano said. “I expected him to win the stakes early and then become an invite horse.”

Hays My Game has accomplished more during the brief Los Alamitos meeting than any other older trotter. He has earned more than $36,000 and aside from Joe’s Birthday is the only horse to win at least two divisions of the invitational trot.

Each year of Hays My Game’s three seasons of racing have been more lucrative than the previous. In 1992, as a 2-year-old, he earned $25,292, racing at Sacramento and Los Alamitos. Last year, he earned more than $57,000, winning 11 of 28 starts.

This year--in only 10 starts--he is already over the $36,000 mark. The Electioneer Futurity, and a victory in an $18,000 division of the California Breeders Championship, have greatly enhanced his earnings.

His future, through, is uncertain.

“He’ll definitely go to Sacramento if we have a meet there,” Plano said. “I want to support that meeting.”

Plano is currently engaged in a close race with Ross Croghan for the lead in the driver’s standings and with Doug Ackerman for the trainer’s title.

This winter, Plano’s stable has operated on two coasts. Aside from the Los Alamitos division, which numbers almost 30, Plano has several top-class pacers racing at The Meadowlands in East Rutherford, N.J., site of the nation’s top harness meeting. Keepyourpantson and The Starting Gate, two 4-year-old pacers, are both racing there.

Keepyourpantson was fifth in a division of the Four Leaf Clover Series on Saturday night. In four starts at The Meadowlands, Keepyourpantson is winless, but has finished second and third.

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Len Blaylock, a driver with only three victories at the current meeting, was seriously injured in a four-horse accident on Saturday, the first harness spill at Los Alamitos since the fall of 1992.

Blaylock was sent to Los Alamitos Medical Center late Saturday and later underwent surgery on a shattered elbow and a broken ankle.

The accident occurred as the field turned for home for the final time in the one-mile pace. Sleep N Sealed, who was driven by Mark P’Pool, was making a move three horses wide when he apparently tried to step out of the hobble, a device usually made of plastic, that keeps the pacers’ legs moving in unison.

Sleep N Sealed fell and P’Pool was thrown. Blaylock, who had been driving Lindas Lad along the rail, made a move for the outside and clearer racing room at the same moment as Sleep N Sealed’s mishap. Blaylock was thrown and his elbow appeared to hit P’Pool’s sulky.

D.R. Ackerman, and Infellable, and Nicol Tremblay with Lucky Lead’Em could not avoid the accident and fell. Ackerman and P’Pool appeared unhurt and Ackerman even won a race later in the program. Tremblay’s ankle, however, later was diagnosed as having a chipped bone in it.

The four horses were not injured.