LOS ALAMITOS : Thoroughbred Jockeys Will Try Different Track

Chris Antley, second in the jockey standings at Hollywood Park, has decided to test his skill on quarter horses Saturday night at Los Alamitos.

Along with Kent Desormeaux and Corey Nakatani, he will take on top quarter horse jockeys in a two-race challenge to benefit the Don MacBeth Memorial Jockey Fund for disabled riders.

Eddie Garcia, Steve Treasure and Jim Lewis will represent the quarter horse riding colony. They will compete in a 400-yard straightaway race and an 870-yard, one-turn race, each with a $12,500 purse. The riders’ mounts will be decided by random draw.

“The only time I rode quarter horses was back on the bush tracks in South Carolina when I was 16,” Antley said. “I remember riding a horse named Mary Lou That’s Who in a (400-yard) race right down the beach on Kiawah Island.

“It was called the Kiawah Cup, and I won that. To me, it was like the Kentucky Derby.”

At the time, Antley rode quarter horses for $20 a mount on weekends and galloped thoroughbreds on weekday mornings.

“It was pretty good money for a kid of 16,” he said. “And it was a big opportunity just to be a part of racing.”

Desormeaux also has some experience on quarter horses. A three-time Eclipse Award winner for his thoroughbred exploits, Desormeaux grew up in Louisiana and learned to ride by guiding quarter horses around the bush tracks there.

Nakatani also began his career on quarter horses.

“One of the first horses I ever broke out of the gate was a quarter horse,” Nakatani said. “I’ve never raced them, but they were the first horses I rode. I was galloping at San Luis Rey Downs training center.”

Riders will earn points for first-, second- and third-place finishes. The overall winner will get $2,000, along with the bragging rights.

“We might have the edge going down the lane in the 400,” Lewis said of his quarter horse riding team. “But I think it will be pretty even in the 870 race.”

*

Since Ima Reb Hot made his first start last year, trainer Baxter Andruss has packed him up, shipped him from state to state and scored victory after victory. Now the horse is being pointed toward the $100,000 Los Alamitos Derby, a Grade I event with trials Friday.

As a 2-year-old, Ima Reb Hot won 14 of 16 races. “The only two he missed were when he was sick,” Andruss said.

This year, he’s three for three. The most recent success was in the Derby Challenge at Boise, Ida., which boosted his earnings to $102,000.

Ima Reb Hot, owned by Canadian Cecil Salmon, is a versatile runner. In the Portland Meadows Challenge, he broke first, led all the way and won by three lengths. In his next race, the Derby Challenge, he started slowly on an off track, gained the lead and ran just fast enough to hold off his closest pursuer.

“We got in Thursday and he hauled in good shape,” Andruss said of the two-day drive from Grants Pass, Ore.

The fields for the Los Alamitos Derby trials include Town Policy Handicap winners Artesias Special Gal and Fast Wheelin Royalty and El Primero Derby winner Rainbow Sun.

Blane Schvaneveldt will enter six horses, including Totally Illegal and Social Climber. Trainers Bob Gilbert and Charles Treece also have strong 3-year-old contingents.

*

For a relative newcomer, jockey Jose Badilla Jr. has made more than his share of trips to the winner’s circle. The 20-year-old Arizonan came to Los Alamitos in April, 1993, winning 28 of the 349 races in which he rode and finishing in the money 32% of the time.

This year, he is the second-leading rider overall and second on quarter horses. On 170 mounts of all breeds, Badilla has won 34 races, a 20% pace. On quarter horses, he has won 27 of 131 races.

Badilla scored stakes victories with rides on Mr. Diddy Wa Diddy for Treece and on Bienbetter for Paul Jones. Although he rides for most trainers, the majority of his mounts are aboard Treece- or Jones-trained horses.

“When he came here, he was the top jock in Arizona, but the riders there aren’t as good,” Jones said. “This is the best jockey colony in the world for quarter horses.

“(Badilla) has gotten better in the year that he’s been here. I think he’s as good as the best guys here now.”

Badilla’s goals include becoming the leading jockey and winning the All American Handicap at Ruidoso Downs in Ruidoso, N.M.

“He’s unbelievable,” Treece said. “It doesn’t matter if the race is for $1 or $100,000, his attitude is the same. It’s just, ‘Let’s go out there and win it.’ ”

Badilla said he doesn’t get nervous before races anymore and his job has become more like riding a bike.

“I study the horses before the races and I try to notice things,” he said. “There might be little things to improve if I ride them again. But that’s really it.”

And that might be enough. If anyone is going to beat leading rider Eddie Garcia, Jones thinks it will be Badilla.

Los Alamitos Notes

Alex Bautista won the first parimutuel race in which he rode Sunday night, on Blushabye for trainer Bonifacio Rayas. . . . Bienbetter, Childish and Mega Dash head the list of nominees to Sunday’s Grade III Double Bid Handicap. Off his impressive victory at 50-1 in the Shue Fly Handicap, Bienbetter was assigned 121 pounds, making him co-highweight with Make Mind Bud.