LOS ALAMITOS : Goodwill Comes Out a Big Winner

A policeman hospitalized with a bullet lodged in his brain will eagerly be awaiting the result of the sixth race at Los Alamitos on Thursday night when a 3-year-old pacer named in his honor makes his debut.

Steve Belanger, a deputy in the Los Angeles County Sheriffs’ Department, was shot in the head while making an arrest in Rowland Heights in December and has been in Queen of the Valley Hospital in West Covina since. Belanger, 29, has a wife and a year-old daughter. He is listed in stable condition but is paralyzed and faces a long rehabilitation.

A newspaper account of the shooting deeply moved Michael Brown, a harness owner from nearby Hacienda Heights who wanted to find a way to help. He decided to buy an unraced standardbred, rename him Belanger and pledge all his winnings to a fund for the deputy.

“It’s my way of saying thank you to the men and women who risk their lives every day to protect our common interests,” said Brown, who manufactures bar-coded price tags and labels for retailers.

“I told my wife, Pat, I wanted to do it,” Brown said, demonstrating the best in holiday spirit. “I had my trainer, Frank Sherren, on the phone within a half hour and 10 days later bought the horse.”

Brown bought the colt for $10,000 from Wayne Knittel, a veterinarian who owns K.B. Farm in Bakersfield.

“His original name was Bel-Air Bullet,” Brown said. “The irony was amazing. It proved the entire endeavor was meant to be.”

Brown’s goodwill toward his fellow man became contagious. Knittel forked over $550 for the colt’s stakes payments this year, and he and fellow veterinarians Gary Budahn and C.B. Smith donated a portion of their fees to the fund.

Sherren is contributing his normal training and driving fees to the fund. Ed Actkinson, another owner, volunteered to pay the groom’s fees. Premier II Harness, which runs the meet, agreed to pick up blacksmith and feed costs.

“Floyd and Diane Rounds, who claimed Cutting Corners from me, donated $500 of the purse to the fund after she won last month,” Brown said.

Sgt. Bob Shearer of the Walnut Sheriffs’ station said that $28,000 has been raised for Belanger through other fund-raisers.

“It’s odd how things will bring people together,” Schearer said. “You get overwhelmed and desensitized by all the tragedy out there, but once in a while something like this happens.”

The heartwarming story is the second in North American harness racing in recent months. The first occurred in the Canadian maritime provinces in November. Through the action of a Prince Edward Island owner named Tom McPherson, $12,000 was raised for 12-year-old Jeffery Bowman, who suffers from a rare, debilitating disease.

McPherson heard of the boy’s plight during a morning radio show and sent out a $300 check to help buy an electric wheelchair. He also called his trainer-driver, Earl Smith, and told him to donate whatever his pacing filly, Charlotte’s Britt, earned in a $17,990 stake at Charlottetown that night.

Charlotte’s Britt won as a 26-1 longshot and the purse donation triggered other gifts, including a night out at the track for the boy, including a ride behind the filly.