Gutierrez Making Strong Comeback

Guillermo Gutierrez is a fixture early each morning in the barns at Los Alamitos Race Course now that he is healthy and raring to ride again.

Known as an aggressive rider who can handle just about any mount, Gutierrez had a strong first week, guiding Saltiki to victory in the $9,750 Los Alamitos Stake Distaff for Arabians and posting a second-place finish aboard Shallimar Nabu in the Los Alamitos Stakes on opening night.

Gutierrez, 27, is coming off an injury-riddled 1995 season. There was some question whether he would ever be able to ride with the same authority that made him the track’s all-time leading thoroughbred racer and the No. 3 rider overall two seasons ago.

Last April, Gutierrez fell off his mount during a race and broke his shoulder. It took hours of surgery and two steel pins to put the bones together again. A couple months later, still recovering from the fall, Gutierrez needed an emergency appendectomy. Then, late last summer, just about the time he seemed to be getting his life back together, the injured shoulder locked up during a race. Gutierrez was through for the rest of the meeting.

“He had the kind of year you just want to forget,” his agent, Neil Bricks, said.

The young jockey says he has done just that--forgotten about his bad fortune.

“I have been working very hard,” he said, referring to his daily 6 a.m. visits to the barns. “For three months I have been working very hard. I never [take a] vacation. I can ride the horses. I can win the races.”

Gutierrez’s father and grandfather were jockeys.

Gutierrez showed up at Tijuana’s Caliente Race Track in 1985 when he was only 16 and won his debut. He came to the United States a few years later and in 1993 got his biggest stakes victory--the $60,700 American Quarter Horse Assn. Challenge Distance Championships. Although he prefers to handle Arabian horses, he seems comfortable with all types of mounts.

“He can change his style with horses,” said Saltiki’s trainer, Billy M. Lewis. “You don’t have to tell him how to ride a horse. He can adjust the pace by himself. If someone goes out fast, he’ll drop back. If it’s slow, he’ll pick up the pace. He’s a real excellent rider.”

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Edward C. Allred, owner of Los Alamitos and reported to own more than 400 quarter horses, didn’t waste any time getting out of the starting gate last weekend. His filly First And Proud dominated the trials for La Primera Del Ano Derby and two of his 3-year-old geldings Keeps and Free Thinker ruled the trials for El Primero Del Ano Derby.

Keeps posted the fastest time of all contenders for the Primero, 19.95 seconds over 400 yards. First And Proud posted a three-length victory over Dashing Millie in 19.87. In all, four Allred horses qualified for the 10-horse El Primero Del Ano field. The $106,000 race, 400 yards for 3-year-old colts and geldings, is May 3. It will be followed the next day by La Primera Del Ano Derby, a $94,000 race for 3-year-old fillies.

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Allred is a popular figure at the track, not only because he owns the place and many horses that run there, but because he spends a good deal of time trying to improve quarter horse racing.

Said Arabian trainer Lewis, who spent eight years racing horses in Delaware before coming to Los Alamitos in 1992: “Dr. Allred has been real good with our breed of horses. He’s a very forward-looking man who is always looking to improve things. I’ve been very impressed by him.”

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Longtime Orange County resident and one-time Los Alamitos kingpin D. Wayne Lukas has four Kentucky Derby contenders for the 122nd event at Churchill Downs May 4. They are Prince of Thieves, Editor’s Note, Honour and Glory and Victory Speech. A fifth, Dr. Caton, was scheduled to run in this weekend’s Derby Trial but has been scratched because of emergency throat surgery.

Prince of Thieves is training in Kentucky for Sunday’s Grade III Lexington Stakes at Keeneland and is considered to be Lukas’ best shot at the Derby this year. Prince of Thieves finished sixth in the Santa Anita Derby recently.

“Everyone wants a great race; we want a solid one,” said Lukas of Sunday’s Lexington race. “Because of the interval to the Derby, you don’t want to put out too much. They need to have something left.”