LOS ALAMITOS : Treasure Gets Some for Success

Jockey Steve Treasure was honored last Saturday night as one of only three riders to have won 100 stakes races at Los Alamitos Race Course.

Treasure, 40, earned his 100th victory on July 2, when he rode the Danny Mitchell-trained Beduinos Lark in the $12,000 Santa Maria Handicap for 2-year-olds.

Others who have won 100 or more stakes at the track are Kenny Hart, with 132, and Bobby Adair, with 114. Right behind Treasure is John Creager, who has 71.

For Treasure, the road to the top had been a long one that started in his native Idaho.

In his rookie year, Treasure won stakes races throughout the Northwest, including the John Hoak Memorial Futurity and Boise Derby. But it was when a 17-year-old Treasure moved to Los Alamitos in 1972 that his career took off.

Treasure scored a stakes victory in his first year at the track, riding Go Chickie Go to victory in a futurity.

He got stakes win No. 2 the next night, riding Osage Rocket in the Chicado V Handicap. He later won the Vessels Maturity with Osage Rocket, one of his favorite horses.

“She was so good, and had a lot of heart,” Treasure said.

After that, Treasure’s name became a familiar one in stakes races at Los Alamitos. The veteran has won nearly every major race at the track, although he is still looking for a triumph in the prestigious Champion of Champions.

His record includes an amazing four victories in both the Ed Burke Memorial Futurity and Golden State Futurity.

He scored consecutive triumphs in the Golden State Derby, Miss Princess Handicap and Kaweah Bar Handicap, and has won some of the richest races at Los Alamitos, among them the $423,242 Kindergarten Futurity and $682,143 Dash For Cash Futurity, both with Ettago Chickie in 1979.

Treasure’s success has not been limited to California. He rode Black Sable to victory in New Mexico, in Ruidoso Downs’ Rainbow Derby, and has ridden such champions as Chingaderos, Ettago Chickie, Vespero, Oh Shiney and Liberty Coin.

Despite his success, Treasure was thrilled at becoming one of the top riders in Los Alamitos’ history.

“It was pretty exciting,” he said. “I didn’t know they were going to [give me a trophy].

“It makes you feel good. All of them make you feel good, when you win a race.”

Los Alamitos Notes

Refrigerator, quarter horse racing’s all-time leading money winner, had a workout time of 17.90 seconds for 350 yards on July 5. The Blane Schvaneveldt-trainee is expected to make his first start of the year in the Grade I Go Man Go Handicap on Aug. 19. Jockey Kip Didericksen, who rode Refrigerator to victory in the 1992 Champion Of Champions, was aboard for the workout, and may get the call in the Go Man Go Handicap.

Bine Masters, former general manager of the Pacific Coast Quarter Horse Racing Assn., is training at Los Alamitos. Masters’ first winner was his first starter, Newport Fancy, who won the third race last Saturday night. . . . Moana Schwertsik rode Saltiki to victory in the Bob MacDonald Region II Distaff Saturday evening. All three of Schwertsik’s victories at the current meet have been aboard Saltiki

Longshot Styyx, at 13-1, upset favored Magna Terra Smoky in the Charles O. Pollard Memorial Handicap last Friday, giving trainer Bryan Braithwaite and owner Roger Lang their second stakes victory of the day.

The duo had won the ARC Open at the Alameda County Fair in Pleasanton with Kimorf that afternoon. . . . Trials for the Ed Burke Memorial Futurity will be held Friday night, featuring some of the top 2-year-olds at Los Alamitos.