Trainer January Finally Reaches Spotlight After Primo High’s Big Victory

Elmer January has been taken aback by all the attention he received this month.

An introspective man with a passion for trout fishing, the longtime trainer at Los Alamitos Race Course raised eyebrows when Primo High won the $307,000 Pacific Coast Quarter Horse Racing Assn. Breeders Futurity for 2-year-olds Oct. 5.

It was the biggest victory January has posted in 41 years at Los Alamitos.

The victory also establishes Primo High as a favorite in the Dec. 21 Los Alamitos Million Futurity and might mean the Jazzing Hi gelding will enter Friday’s trials for the $25,000 Golden State Futurity, a race his owners hadn’t considered until now.

January has had a couple of horses who have run well before, but his stable has largely been known as a factory for $2,500 claimers. His last big stakes victory was in 1980.

“He’s finally got the horse that he can show what he can really do,” said Michael Bottasso, one of Primo High’s owners.

January, who lives on a ranch near Fresno, is a throwback to the days when you could ride a horse for days in any direction in California’s Central Valley and never see another soul.

Born in Texas, January came West with his family in the Dust Bowl era of the 1930s and they ended up in the San Joaquin Valley as migrant farm workers.

It was a hard life, but January made the best of it, getting schooling when he could while picking fruit and cotton from Bakersfield to Hollister. The family often lived in tent cities not far from the fields.

“You saw the movie, ‘Grapes of Wrath?’ ” January asked. “That was a true picture. That was us. We picked anything, anywhere just to make a living.”

January eventually bought a small farm as a young man in Tulare County. He bought an old racehorse one day and it didn’t take long for him to get hooked. He can’t remember exactly when he ran his first horse competitively, but it was at the San Mateo County Fair at Bay Meadows Race Course, perhaps in the late 1940s. He ran his first horse at Los Alamitos in 1955.

“What a super guy,” long-time Los Alamitos trainer Bruce Hawkinson said. “He’s just ol’ Elmer. He’s never been any different. He’s a quiet, good-natured guy.”

Ed Gilliam, half owner of Primo High and a Fresno-area aluminum manufacturer, has known January for 23 years and several of his horses have been trained by January.

“Elmer’s the kind of guy that, if you’re feeling down, you go talk to him for a while and you come away feeling a lot better,” Gilliam said.

Gilliam and Bottasso, a Fresno County dairyman, have stuck with January all these years, even though he hasn’t turned in big purses. They say they have been most impressed with January’s simplistic--some call it old-fashioned--approach to animals. January doesn’t even have a telephone in his barn.

“He uses a lot of common sense,” Bottasso said. “He knows when to push a horse to the limit and when not to. That goes with being a good human being.”

January can’t remember how many horses he has trained, but he is far from retirement. Bottasso and Gilliam predict January is going to have his hands full in the next few years, noting that their stock of broodmares has the ability to produce quality racehorses.

“He’s going to have several horses that are decent,” Gilliam said. “He’s getting better stock. He’s going to get a yearling next year that we like. We’re getting better mares and we’re going to bring him a full brother to Primo High next year.”

These are what track regulars refer to as the dog days of racing. The meet is in its sixth month and rapidly winding down. Everyone begins to yearn for the last week of racing Dec. 21-22, Hawkinson said, when the races with top purses will be run.

January, however, has turned the dog days into his days.

Los Alamitos Notes

Jockey Oscar Monroy, who took a spill early in the meet, has had a second operation on his left shoulder and has decided not to ride the remainder of the meet. . . Oklahoma-based Winalota Cash is expected to be flown to Southern California soon and is expected to run in the trials to the Los Alamitos Derby on Nov. 2. The Derby will be held Nov. 15. Regular jockey Billy Peterson will be abroad if Winalota Cash runs. . . Dale Smith’s Sign It Super won the 870-yard Bull Rastus Handicap on Thursday. . . Champion of Champions winner My Debut, which has not raced since Sept. 15, is expected to compete Nov. 1 in the Los Alamitos Invitational Championship. “He really doesn’t need to race to stay fit,” trainer Blane Schvaneveldt said. . . Magna Terra Smoky, the most victorious Arabian horse in the country, is expected to be entered in the Nov. 9 Arabian Cup Championship. The horse, owned by Barbara Jagoda, won a $4,500 allowance test race Oct. 10, its first victory since recovering from a back injury more than a year ago.