Schvaneveldt’s Seeking First Stakes Win of Year

After a slow start, Blane Schvaneveldt, the perennial track champion, has continued his hot streak and has lengthened his lead in the quarter horse trainer standings at Los Alamitos Race Course. Schvaneveldt’s horses have won 48 races, 12 more than trainer Paul Jones’ horses. In all-breeds, Schvaneveldt has 38 victories and Jones 29.

Nevertheless, Schvaneveldt goes for his first stakes win of the season when he saddles two horses, Smash Em Easily and Naturally A Winner, in the $12,000 Seal Beach Handicap Saturday night.

Schvaneveldt needs two stakes victories to reach the 300-stakes wins plateau. Naturally A Winner turned in the fastest time in qualifying.

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Thanks to off-track betting, the track continues to post gains in wagering. An all-time high of $1,581,094 was bet on the 15-card event July 11. On-track handle for the 11 live and four simulcast races was $427,448, while off-track betting was a staggering $1,153,646.

The track continues to seek ways to increase wagering. Track Racing Secretary Ron Church recently announced that purses for quarter horse races have been raised an average of 8%. The thinking goes that this should attract more trainers from other tracks and bring in even more competitive horses.

A majority of the increase will go to races designed for 3-year-olds, according to Church, as a way to encourage trainers to race horses past their 2-year-old season.

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The late actor Robert Mitchum was a regular at Los Alamitos and his son, James, runs the family breeding program at a ranch in Paradise Valley, Ariz. The ranch has turned out several notable winners, including Mere First, winner of the 1997 Bardella Handicap and the 1996 California Derby Challenge. In 1974, Don Guerro won the Champion of Champions and was named Champion Aged Stallion. Mere First is a descendant of Don Guerro.

In all, Mitchum and his wife, Dorothy, and their Belmont Farms ranch bred and raced 118 quarter horses that have earned $670,000.

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Reaction to allegations of race-fixing at Los Alamitos has been mixed.

After an 18-month investigation by quarter horse officials and the FBI, it was revealed last week that gambler Richard Sklar has pleaded guilty to two counts of fixing Arabian horse races at the track in 1995. Sklar has reportedly implicated jockey Richard Pfau, the first jockey at the course to win 100 Arabian horse races. Pfau has been indicted on two counts of race fixing in U.S. District Court but has not entered a plea.

Trainer Jaime Gomez said he hopes the alleged incident won’t give the track a black eye.

“It has put us in a bad situation, but all the people I talk to say they don’t know anything. It’s hard to control 2,000 people who work around here.”

Veteran trainer Bruce Hawkinson said he will believe the FBI’s charges against Pfau only if there’s a conviction.

“Those things are hard to prove in court,” he said. “Even though he has been indicted, it’s a long way toward conviction.”

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Hard-luck jockey Guillermo Gutierrez, who has been on and off mounts while recovering from shoulder surgery more than two years ago, took a tumble in the second race July 4 and broke his collarbone. Gutierrez was aboard the Arabian Kontiki Streak and was trying to pull up down the backstretch when the horse threw him. A native of Tijuana, Gutierrez is expected to be sidelined another six to eight weeks.

Notes

Trainer Connie Hall has pulled Peyote Chick off the track and doesn’t expect to have the gelding saddled again until the Pacific Coast Quarter Horse Racing Assn. Breeders Futurity on Oct. 3. Hall said the horse has been running tired and needs to get back into racing shape. . . . A second-place finish in the recent Governor’s Cup at Los Alamitos was good enough to convince trainer Curtis Olijar to spend $50,000 on a late entry for Willie Wanta Dash to the All-American Futurity. The 2-year-old is being shipped to Ruidoso Downs in New Mexico for preparation for the Futurity, which will be in late August.