HORSEPOWER HAS DRIVEN THE KUEBLERS

Fred Kuebler was a student at San Fernando Valley State 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 old Devonshire Downs in Northridge.

Rick Kuebler, 14, had developed a fascination with harness racing and yearned to be a race driver. He worked around the stables without pay.

Fred, studying to be an 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 harness meeting at Los Alamitos. He recently claimed the 2,800th victory of his career.

Fred, 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.

“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.”

Rick fell for the beauty, grace and power of race horses, particularly those hitched to a sulky. He would spend long hours watching them train at the old Devonshire Downs, now site of Cal State Northridge’s football stadium, or Hollywood Park, where he sometimes went with his father.

Rick knew early in life he wanted to be a part what he calls a cross between “an athletic endeavor and a drama class.”

“I don’t consider harness drivers true athletes,” he said. “The horse is the athlete. But by driving, I could be a part of the show.”

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 money from relatives and friends to start a stable that grew to more than 50 horses.

Fred put his business degree to work and managed the stable full time.

A wrestler at Alemany High, the 115-pound Rick Kuebler graduated in 1971 and turned professional as a harness driver less than a year later, spurning a scholarship offer to wrestle at Northridge.

Kuebler said he wasn’t sure he could take another four years of rigorous training and he wasn’t sure he wanted to be a bookworm, either.

“I didn’t like wrestling,” he said. “I have a lot of bad memories from it. When I was in school I had some of the worst times of my life during wrestling season.”

Rick Kuebler earned his first victory in Sacramento at the Cal Expo State Fairgrounds in 1972 and drove his first sulky at Los Alamitos in 1974. Soon after, the family put together the stable.

Fred and Rick went to a horse auction in Lexington, Ky. to buy its first few horses. Rick’s driving career began to take off and the brothers traversed from track to track.

“We would go back and fourth across the country with our horses in our trailers,” Fred said.

The road soon got lonely and Fred longed for a more stable career.

“In 1977 we went to the Meadowlands and had a good year, but by that time I really wanted to get out of managing horses and get into race track management,” he said.

Fred got his break at Los Alamitos when in 1978, with no prior experience running a track, he was hired as director of harness racing. He 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.

“I handle everything from the back track, to the horsemen, the horses, and recruiting good horses to run races here,” Fred said.

The family dissolved its stable shortly after Fred went to work at Los Alamitos, but Elise and Howard still maintain a stock of horses.

“Its exciting to see your horse running and your son driving it,” Elise said. “He’s a fine driver. We are very proud of both of them.”

Rick’s parents are on hand to see most of his races and are among the first to greet him in the winner’s circle. When Rick is racing out of town, particularly at the Cal-Expo fall-winter meet, they drive to Hollywood Park to watch him race via satellite.

“The boys have given us a lot of thrills,” Elise said. “It’s total excitement when they race. We’re screaming and yelling. I’m sure people from the grandstands have looked up at us and thought, ‘Oh, my God.’ ”

Elise and Howard delight in the photos on the wall at their sub shop, run by Rick’s and Fred’s sister, Tina Fitzpatrick. The photos serve as a family history in a profession that has permeated their lives.