Hi Ho Silverheel’s Back With a Bullet

“Hi ho! Hi ho! It’s off to work you go,” sang trainer Milan Smith as he secured the saddlecloth on Hi Ho Silverheel’s in a Los Alamitos paddock stall Sunday before the star pacer’s final qualifier for a return to racing.

Smith nervously handed the reins to driver Rick Kuebler, then watched the rangy 5-year-old horse pace a 1:56 mile to signal his readiness after a 14-month layoff.

Hi Ho Silverheel’s is scheduled to return Saturday in an invitational pace at Los Alamitos, where he won the first four starts of his career in 1994 on the way to becoming one of the best in the nation with 14 victories in 21 starts, $364,000 in earnings and a best mark of 1:50 3/5 at Garden State, N.J.

Smith had high hopes for the son of Walton Hanover last year, but a nagging ligament injury above his right front ankle kept him on the sidelines.

“You can always make money, but you can’t always get a horse like this,” Smith said of his decision not to rush Hi Ho Silverheel’s back. “So I said why not give him a year off and give him a real good chance?”

Smith, 72, kept the horse fit by having him swim during his time off, and the horse received a clean bill of health two months ago. “He’s gotten much bigger and stronger and his muscles have developed,” Smith said. “He should be in his prime.”

He has added one piece of equipment designed to support his suspect leg. “It’s a suspensory support boot,” said Smith, wrapping the stretchable rubber device around the horse’s leg.

After winning his first qualifier by 12 lengths in 1:58 3/5 a week earlier, Hi Ho Silverheel’s improved immensely. He took the lead after an eighth of a mile and covered the second half in 56 2/5 seconds to win by 19 lengths.

“He was a lot more relaxed,” Kuebler said after the second qualifier. “At the gate, I could have done anything I wanted. I didn’t have to ask him for anything.”

Smith walked the horse in front of his barn an hour later with ice-water wraps on his front legs. “I punched his legs, and there was no tenderness at all,” said Smith, as the horse looked toward the track. “Look at him. He wants to go back out there.”

Smith named the $1,850 bargain colt after the late Jay Silverheels, a close friend who played Tonto in “The Lone Ranger” television series. Smith hopes to race the horse several times at this meet before chasing all the top free-for-all events in the East that he missed last year.

Harness Racing Notes

There was a rare triple dead heat for win Friday among pacing mares Paula’s Pride, Kiwi Loch and Easy Guess--the first in Los Alamitos harness history--with drivers Steve Warrington, Rick Plano and Chip Lackey, respectively. According to U.S. Trotting Assn. figures, it was the 18th recorded in North American standardbred history and the third in California, following ones at Santa Anita on March 26, 1958, and Bay Meadows on Jan. 11, 1978. Three drivers currently campaigning at this meet were involved in the triple dead heat 18 years ago: Rick Kuebler with Royal Rick’s Way, Steve Desomer with Rapid Canny and Don Ratchford with James Gem. “It was a great race,” recalled Kuebler. “We were nose-and-nose virtually the entire length of the stretch. We were bobbing the whole way down the lane.” Paula’s Pride’s last victory was a dead heat Nov. 25 at Sacramento. . . . Predazzo N, horse of the meet here last year, is scheduled to be flown in from New Jersey this week to rejoin the Rudy Sialana stable and should race soon.

Sabina Knight, the only woman driver in this colony, won for the second time at this meet with Trytotopme, a 4-year-old trotting mare she trains and leases. . . . Milan Smith, who trains Hi Ho Silverheel’s for his wife, Myrna, and Roy Mooresfield, a Downey contractor, also has the top pacing mare on the grounds in Nicols Doll, a 5-year-old homebred who raised her earnings to $92,596 with her third victory in four tries here in the distaff invitational. . . . Nick’s Fantasy, a 4-year-old gelding who won the Little Brown Jug for owner-breeder Ken Carver of North Hollywood last year, is with the Bob Ritchie stable at the Meadows near Pittsburgh. Nick’s Fantasy should make his first start at the Meadowlands, N.J., track next month and could meet Hi Ho Silverheel’s and Jenna’s Beach Boy, pacer of the year, in several major stakes in the East. Carver named the homebred after Nick Marks, a studio cameraman friend, and invested $155,000 on four Harrisburg Sale yearlings, including $78,000 on a No Nukes colt he renamed Don Nukem.