Garcia Is on Track to Set Record

For decades, jockeys at Los Alamitos Race Course believed reaching the 200-win plateau in a single season was about as possible as someone hitting more home runs than the major league-record 61 hit by Roger Maris in 1961.

Quarter horse jockey Eddie Garcia is off to a great start, much like the St. Louis Cardinals’ Mark McGwire, who has 33 home runs this season.

Garcia, 33, is running away with the track’s jockey standings with 67 victories. At his current pace, he will win 270 races, shattering the track mark of 175 he set last year.

Later in the meet, which ends in December, he is expected to become the first Mexican-born quarter-horse jockey to win 1,000 races.

“As long as I’m healthy,” Garcia said, “I have no doubts that I will win more than 200 races this season.”

Garcia, who has battled injuries the last three years, finished second in the 1997 national jockey standings to long-time Los Alamitos rival Joe Badilla Jr. Garcia finished in the money 56% of the time last year, but Badilla (50% in the money) had slightly more victories (180 to 176) and rode 138 more mounts. Garcia ranked fifth nationwide in total earnings in 1997, bringing in $1,630,498.

With Badilla sidelined early in this year’s meet with a broken leg, resulting from a training accident, Garcia has dominated the competition.

“He’s a very positive rider with the horses. He’s all business,” trainer Connie Hall said of Garcia. “He’s one of the faster riders out of the gate. You have the best chance at winning if you get out fast.”

Hall, who became the first woman trainer to win the All-American Futurity in 1993 with Garcia aboard A Classic Dash, says it’s not uncommon for trainers to haggle over Garcia’s mounts these days.

“I like a rider that tries real hard,” Hall said.

Garcia, meanwhile, calls himself “an owners’ jockey.”

“What makes me a good rider is that I like to win,” he said. “I like to make people feel happy, and it really feels good to win a race. I’m happy with a win when the owners are really into it. When I’m on their horse, I want to try everything I can.”

Garcia arrived in Hemet from Jalisco, Mexico, at age 13 in 1978. Later, on the advice of former jockey Ralph Seville, Garcia moved to Salt Lake City to race.

Garcia returned to California in 1982 and rode at Bay Meadows for a while, then in the winter of 1984, he moved to Los Alamitos and mostly took training mounts while building up his clientele of trainers. Two men who gave Garcia a chance to race for them in his early years were thoroughbred trainer Bob Baffert and the dean of quarter horse racing, Blane Schvaneveldt.

“I owe these men a lot,” said Garcia, who went on to win the first of three consecutive Los Al jockey titles in 1991.

But in 1994 he suffered knee ligament damage and a shoulder injury that required surgery, forcing him to miss about five months of racing. He rebounded nicely in 1995 and has won the last three jockey standings at the track.

“I’ve worked real hard to get where I am,” Garcia said. “I think my talent is natural. I exercise horses every morning. The trainers and owners know I will always be there every day. It was a lot of hard work to get where I am, but to be this race track’s leading rider is a dream come true.”

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A little bit of sentiment paid off for trainer Wayne Lukas, who has two quarter horses running in the $150,000 Governor’s Cup Futurity on June 27.

The gelding Drop Your Sox won the second of six Cup trails recently with the best time (17.63 seconds) posted by any horse over the 350-yard race. Another Lukas mount, Private Venture, qualified ninth. A total of 52 horses ran in the trials and 10 qualified for the Cup final.

Lukas and partner Laura Pinelli claimed Drop Your Sox for $10,000 after it won its first race on April 24.

“I trained Drop Your Sox’s half-brother and I really loved his racing bloodlines,” Pinelli, a trainer, said. “It was more a sentimental claim than anything, but he really has developed into a nice prospect.”

Lukas began his training career in 1967 at Los Alamitos and ranks 22nd in victories among quarter horse trainers at the track.

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The second Rumble at the Races boxing card, featuring six four-round bouts, will be staged in the grandstand area near the finish line Saturday night. General admission is $3 and the first fight is scheduled to begin at 7.

Westminster’s Benito Sanchez (4-0, one knockout) will be featured in a junior welterweight bout against an opponent to be named.

The first card May 16 attracted 3,247 spectators, a 30% increase over the track’s nightly average. On-track attendance for the meet is up 19% overall with a nightly average of 2,393.

Fight cards are also set for July 18 and Aug. 15.

Notes

The American Quarter Horse Racing Challenge, a series of races culminating with its championship night Dec. 20 at Los Alamitos, is soliciting responses for its marketing slogan. The AQHA is seeking a short sentence or statement that describes the multimillion dollar program. The winner receives a $250 gift certificate. Slogan suggestions should be sent to AQHA Marketing Services Dept., P.O. Box 200, Amarillo, Texas, 79168 or call (806) 376-4888. The deadline is July 15. . . . Of the $13.1 billion wagered on thoroughbred racing last year, 78% was placed at off-track betting locations, according to a study by the Jockey Club Fact Book, which is published annually. The off-track handle was $10.37 billion, the fourth consecutive annual increase. . . . Following a pattern established at Los Alamitos, purses at the Ruidoso Downs in Albuquerque are being raised 25% over last year. Edward C. Allred, the majority owner at Los Alamitos, and Hollywood Park’s R.D. Hubbard bought Ruidoso last year. Recent New Mexico legislation paved the way for the track to add slot machines.