Kueblers Make Harness Racing a Family Affair

Fred Kuebler was a student at San Fernando Valley State College and didn’t have a clue what he was getting into one day in 1968 when he walked his teenage brother over to the horse stables at the old Devonshire Downs in Northridge.

Rick Kuebler, 14, had developed a fascination with harness racing and yearned to be a race driver. Rick was willing to work around the stables for free, and Fred, studying to be an elementary school teacher, was sent by his parents to make sure his brother wasn’t getting in over his head.

“I went with him as the big brother kind of thing to make sure he would be all right,” said Fred Kuebler, now director of harness racing at Los Alamitos Race Course. “I wasn’t that dead-set interested in getting into the business. I never thought it would happen.”

Today on the walls of a small submarine sandwich restaurant across from Cal State Northridge--the former Valley State--owners Elise and Howard Kuebler display photographs that document the successful harness racing careers they share with their sons.

Rick, 44, is the driving leader of the current harness meeting at Los Alamitos and recently won his 2,800th career race. Howard, 48, quit teaching in 1974 and has worked at everything from breeding horses to managing a stable to race administration. Their parents are the top owners at Los Alamitos, with two pacers that have won a total of 11 races.

None of the Kueblers could have predicted their family’s 30-year saga in harness racing. While Rick learned the business from the ground up, mucking out stables and washing down horses, the rest of his family was slowly getting hooked. Elise and Howard scraped up enough money from relatives and friends to start a horse stable that grew to more than 50 head. Fred, meanwhile, wanted to put his business degree to work, and began to manage the stable full time.

“Unlike other horsemen, my family had no background in horses,” Rick said. “It simply grew from my dream. My dad would take me out to the races, especially harness races, and I got caught up with the color and glamour and the glitter.”

A wrestler at Mission Hills Alemany High, Rick Kuebler graduated in 1971 and turned professional as a harness driver less than a year later. He earned his first victory in Sacramento at the Cal Expo State Fairgrounds in 1972 and drove his first sulky at Los Alamitos in 1974.

Fred was named harness racing director at Los Alamitos in 1978 and has held the position through several ownership changes during the past 20 years. He also conducted the Cal-Expo harness meet when Los Alamitos was dark during the 1970s and 1980s.

The family dissolved its stable shortly after Fred went to work at Los Alamitos, but Elise and Howard have maintained a stock of horses through the years.

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A handful of drivers have reached personal milestones during the current harness meet. Besides Rick Kuebler’s 2,800th championship drive, drivers posting career marks include Brick Clarke (1,500 victories), Tim Twaddle (1,400) and Lou Pena (600).

Before the meet concludes in early April, driver Gene Vallandingham is expected to get victory No. 2,700 and Jim Lackey is expected to pick up his 1,500th victory.

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For the second time in three weeks the track has canceled a day of racing, this time eliminating its Presidents Day holiday event Feb. 16.

Los Alamitos annually closes shop on Super Bowl Sunday, as it did Jan. 24. But according to Fred Kuebler, an attempt to run a Monday card on Martin Luther King Day didn’t prove cost effective.

Kuebler said another problem was the lack of fresh horses available to put on a full race card on the King holiday, which marked the track’s fifth consecutive day of racing. Normally, the track holds races from Thursday through Sunday.

The track will remain open on Presidents Day for simulcast betting on races being run at Santa Anita and Bay Meadows.

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Jan. 30 was a big day at the track as it posted a total handle of $1,719,948, largest of the meet. A majority of wagering--$909,154--was placed at off-track locations, according to figures released by the track. Overall, the total handle is up 5% over the same period a year ago. The 59-day 1997 campaign set a record average handle of $1,176,432.32.

Notes

Los Alamitos Public Relations Director John Petti has resigned to take a similar position at a small quarter horse track in Idaho. . . . Donna McArthur upended veteran Blane Schvaneveldt and was voted the nation’s top quarter horse trainer by the American Quarter Horse Assn. Schvaneveldt had been the winner since the award began in 1985. Although Schvaneveldt sent out horses to 18 stakes victories as opposed to 10 stakes wins for McArthur’s horses, she was the nation’s top money-earner with $2,143,776 in purses. Edward C. Allred, Los Alamitos majority owner, was named the nation’s best breeder. His horses won 124 starts and brought in $1,273,359. G.R. Carter, who rode mounts that won $2,366,796, was cited as the nation’s best jockey. The annual awards were selected by vote of the 67 members of the AQHA Racing Council and seven racing journalists.