LOS ALAMITOS : At 82, He Still Has Trophy Touch

A quarter horse owner since 1944, and a fan even before that, Spencer Childers is still finding the best parts of the game. With a barn full of promising 2-year-olds and a race named after him, the 82-year-old Childers should be easy to spot at Los Alamitos this season.

He will be the one presenting the trophy to the winners of the Spencer Childers California Championship on Saturday night. And he probably will be the one accepting the trophy in a later futurity.

Since buying his first horse 50 years ago, Childers has become more involved each year. A former president of both the Peninsula Racing Assn., which raced at Bay Meadows, and the Pacific Quarter Horse Racing Assn., which represents owners, breeders and trainers, he now serves on the board of directors at Los Alamitos.

And still, he was surprised to learn that Ed Allred, who owns Los Alamitos, had named a race in his honor. “I asked Ed about that,” Childers said. “I said, ‘How come you named one for me? I’m not dead yet.’ ”

Childers already has two winners among the nine juveniles he sent to trainer Daryn Charlton.

“I hardly know yet which are the better ones,” Childers said. “Only six have started, but of the six, two were very impressive.”

Outlasting, by Chicks Beduino, and That’s Pretty Easy, by Easy Brace, have won allowance races. Mind Your Heart posted faster qualifying times, but then disappointed in his first start.

The race named for Childers is a 400-yard test for older horses bred in California. Four Forty Blast leads the list of 16 nominees for the $40,000 race. Trained by Jaime Gomez, Four Forty Blast won six consecutive starts last year. The richest runner in the race, his earnings total $319,894 and his record shows 13 victories in 22 races.

The other stake this weekend is the Grade III War Chic Handicap. Mr. Diddy Wa Diddy, Nicotine and Rapid Champ head the field of nine in the $20,000 race for 3-year-olds and up.

Valiant Pete won the 870-yard race last year, becoming the first thoroughbred to do so in the 23-year history of the race.

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Joe Meier, a jockey turned trainer, has decided to return to riding again, and started by accepting mounts in two states last weekend.

On Saturday, he rode Skirt Chasing Alibi in the Dixie Downs Futurity at Dixie Downs in St. George, Utah. He then drove back to Las Vegas and caught a flight for Los Angeles. With an hour’s time difference in Utah, he was able to arrive at Los Alamitos in time to ride in the seventh race.

Meier quit riding last July. He wanted to train and chose to study with Hall of Fame thoroughbred trainer Jack Van Berg. “He’s like a dad to me,” Meier said. “But after seven months, I’d gone as far as I was going to go. I was running a barn for him and the next step was assistant trainer. Neither of his sons (Van Berg’s assistants) are leaving any time soon, so I went on my own.”

Quarter horse owners whom he had ridden for supported him and Meier started with one horse in training at Pomona.

“I tried training, but I saw guys who were riding two or three times a week last year were riding two or three times a night,” Meier said. “With two of last year’s top riders gone, it seemed there was an opportunity. I really think I can be in the top five.”

Los Alamitos Notes

Danny Cardoza, who has the most victories as a jockey at Los Alamitos, won his first stakes race as a trainer with Pretty Sensation in the Orange Stakes last Saturday. . . . Jockey Carlos Bautista, who suffered a shoulder injury when he was thrown in late April, will be out of action for another two or three weeks. What doctors originally thought was only a strained shoulder turned out to be a break. . . . With cross-simulcasting of the Hollywood Park races on Friday night, Los Alamitos Race Course handled $1,852,231, which tops all of its Friday night handles, including this year’s opening night.