LOS ALAMITOS : It’s Win, Place and Show for Schvaneveldt

Trainer Blane Schvaneveldt’s dominance as a trainer at Los Alamitos was never so evident as in the $125,000 Los Alamitos Invitational Championship last Friday night. Schvaneveldt’s entries--My Debut, Seals and Refrigerator--finished first, second and third.

Schvaneveldt has won the Los Alamitos Invitational Championship eight times since 1980, including twice with Refrigerator in 1992 and 1993. But it was not Refrigerator’s night to shine as outsider My Debut stepped up to steal the glory and the last guaranteed berth in the Champion of Champions. Seals was second, a nose ahead of Refrigerator.

“I try to get them all as ready as I can get them,” Schvaneveldt said. “They all ran their race and they ran 1-2-3.”

My Debut, a 4-year-old Texas-bred gelding, made his Los Alamitos debut Aug. 11, winning a $9,500 allowance race. A stakes winner in Oklahoma, My Debut then won the $12,000 Lakeside Overnight Handicap on Sept. 4, posting the fastest 350-yard time of the meet--17.43 seconds.

“Luckily, we couldn’t get him in [a race] at first,” Schvaneveldt said of My Debut, who was in California for about two months before his first race. “He needed the time. That’s the best thing that happened to him.”

Owned by his breeder, C.R. Potts of Irving, Tex., My Debut was up against the toughest competition he had faced all year in the Los Alamitos Invitational Championship. In the nine-horse field were Avison, the leading quarter horse in the country; Down With Debt, last year’s world champion; Refrigerator, a two-time world champion, and Seals, the Vessels Maturity runner-up.

Ridden by Roman Figueroa, My Debut broke alertly from the seventh post position and led the field by the first call. My Debut won by a head, stopping the timer in 21.68 seconds and taking home $63,125 of the $125,000 purse.

In earning the last automatic berth in the prestigious Champion of Champions, My Debut joined six other qualifiers--Refrigerator, Avison, Meter Me Gone, Ah Sigh, Higher Goals and Special Phoebe. The three remaining spots will be filled from the Z. Wayne Griffin Directors trials Nov. 25.

Los Alamitos Notes

Three-time distance champion Griswold has been retired. The 8-year-old gelding was arguably the best distance runner in quarter horse racing, earning $627,307 for owner Legacy Ranch. Griswold won 14 stakes races at Los Alamitos, and brought national recognition to quarter horse racing with his famous match race against the thoroughbred Valiant Pete at Santa Anita in 1991. Griswold holds the 870-yard world record of 43.99 seconds, which he set at Los Alamitos.