Beginning of End for Fairplex?

In what could be a farewell season in Pomona, the Los Angeles County Fair launches its 64th meet today with an 11-race card at Fairplex Park.

While the Pomona fixture, first run in 1933, appears headed for Santa Anita in the next and future years, there are trainers--wishful thinkers, perhaps--who say, in the way of the Ira Gershwin lyric, that it ain’t necessarily so.

“I don’t believe they’re going to move next year, at least I hope not,” said Barry Abrams, who won seven races at the fair last year, finishing third in the trainer standings. “The Breeders’ Cup is at Santa Anita next fall. I don’t think they’d want to risk tearing up the grass course with the extra dates ahead of that. But then again, Oak Tree has the Breeders’ Cup meet at Santa Anita, and Santa Anita itself wants the fair dates. So if Santa Anita gets the dates, they might not care what happens during Oak Tree.”

Fairplex and Santa Anita had a five-year deal to move the Pomona dates to the Arcadia track, but the California Horse Racing Board rejected the move at a meeting in June. Some board members said, however, that they might change their votes if the proposal came up again.

“I don’t usually run horses at Pomona,” said Ron McAnally, a Hall of Fame trainer, “but if they’re going to move the dates, I don’t think Santa Anita should monopolize them. Why don’t they rotate the dates among the three tracks? Run them at Santa Anita one year, then Hollywood Park the next year, and then Del Mar the year after that.”

Of the 11 races today, seven are for horses that have never won. A year ago, there were five maiden races on opening day. The traditional opening-day feature, the Foothill Stakes, will be run today for $50,000.

One of today’s allowance races drew only five horses.

Mel Stute, who’s atop the career trainer standings at Pomona with 167 wins, can’t pinpoint the year he won his first race at Pomona.

“It might have been 1948,” he said. “I know it was before I was married, and I was married in 1950.”

Stute, 75, has led the standings or tied for the title seven times.

“My barn’s pretty light right now,” Stute said. “We’re down to 13 horses.”

But one of the 13--who won’t be running at Pomona--is Buffythecenterfold, a stakes-winning 2-year-old filly who might earn Stute another trip to the Breeders’ Cup. The race that will determine her status is the Oak Leaf Stakes, during the Oak Tree-at-Santa Anita meet, on Oct. 6.

The Breeders’ Cup will be run on Oct. 26 at Arlington Park. Stute, who hasn’t had a Breeders’ Cup starter since 1988, won the Juvenile Fillies--the race Buffythecenterfold would run in--with Brave Raj in 1986 and captured the Sprint with Very Subtle in 1987.

“It’s sad that this might be the end of racing at Pomona,” Stute said. “I’ve always liked the place.”

Another trainer, Craig Lewis, who finished tied for fourth in the Pomona standings with six wins last year, seems resigned to this being the last meet at Fairplex.

“Pomona’s a nice place to race, and it’s got a lot of tradition, but I suppose this is going to be it,” Lewis said. “The unfortunate part is that we [the trainers] have no say in the outcome. Moving the dates to Santa Anita is going to squeeze the little guy, but I guess the little guy is already squeezed in this game.”