Fairplex Provides Refuge From Fire

The result of a mating between a quarter horse and an appaloosa, “Dusty” might be the oldest horse ever seen at Fairplex Park in Pomona.

Although the 30-year-old mixed breed is temporarily occupying one of the 1,306 stalls during the Los Angeles County Fair meet, Dusty has never seen Fairplex. Dusty can’t see; inoperable cataracts on both eyes have left him that way for years.

“You wouldn’t have been able to tell it,” said Gail Calva, Fairplex’s stable superintendent, in talking about the blind horse. “He got off that van the other day like nobody’s business.”

Dusty, who never raced, was one of about 90 pleasure horses that were shipped in this week from two equestrian centers in the imperiled San Dimas Canyon. Dozens of cabins in the canyon were destroyed by a fire that had spread to 34,000 acres by late Thursday in the Pomona and San Gabriel valleys.

Briefly Tuesday, about midway through the afternoon’s racing card, the smoke and soot that accompanied the fire threatened the completion of the program.

“We were concerned, and we had our eyes on it,” said Will Meyers, one of the Fairplex stewards. “The winds were blowing west for about an hour. We checked with [Joan Hurley, the state veterinarian] to make sure it was safe for the horses. Then the wind shifted, to the east, and we were out of danger.”

There was more smoke and ash at Santa Anita, the Arcadia track where horses are preparing for the opening of the Oak Tree meet Wednesday. Many trainers backed off morning workouts until Thursday, when conditions were better. Because of brush fires in nearby Altadena, Santa Anita canceled a day of racing in 1993, in the week before the track hosted the prestigious Breeders’ Cup races.

Trainer Jenine Sahadi, who is flying Delta Form, her Del Mar Handicap winner, to New York for Sunday’s $750,000 Turf Classic at Belmont Park, was anxious to squeeze in the 6-year-old gelding’s final workout at Santa Anita on Thursday.

“We got to do what we wanted,” Sahadi said. “But earlier in the week it was sooty and hazy and there was the strong smell of smoke. I usually don’t work my horses on Lasix, but today I gave it to all of them.”

Lasix is a diuretic many horses receive before they race.

As for Dusty, who was transported to Fairplex from the Sycamore Canyon Equestrian Center in San Dimas, he was disoriented when led into his stall.

“He got stress colic,” said Bill Lackey, who co-owns the horse with Lester Tucker and rides Dusty about three times a week. “He was pacing in his stall, and sweating a lot. You can understand that. The people and the horses he’s usually around weren’t there.”

Calva said that Fairplex had about 160 vacant stalls for the 17-day meet that ends Sunday. This became a two-edged sword: The racing department could have used extra horses to better fill its races (sometimes as many as 13 a day), but it was a godsend that Fairplex had the room when the Los Angeles Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals called. Before the red tape could be handled, Lauree Adair, co-owner of the Sycamore facility with her husband, Danny, said that many of their horses--thoroughbreds, quarter horses, appaloosas, paints and Arabians--were evacuated to other places, including Cal Poly Pomona, the Industry Hills Equestrian Center and Rancho San Dimas. There were 146 head in all.

“You should have seen what went on out there,” said Lackey, talking about the emergency evacuation at Sycamore. “They moved out every horse at the ranch in about an hour.”

At Fairplex, Calva said that many of the regularly based thoroughbred trainers welcomed the new horses.

“I’ve got three empty stalls,” trainer Cliff Sise said. “Put anybody in there that you want to.”

Three feed companies--Angels, Citrus and Feedplex--donated food for the distressed horses.

“Everybody pitched in,” Calva said. “We got the blind horse a fly mask. Before I knew it, I had more than 100 water buckets and feed tubs. The owners of those horses were very grateful.”

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Flawlessly, voted champion female on grass in 1992-93, died Thursday and was buried at Elmwood Farm near Versailles, Ky. The 14-year-old mare, who had a troubled, unsuccessful breeding career, had been treated recently for a kidney disorder.

Flawlessly--bred and owned by Louis and Patrice Wolfson, who had raced Affirmed, her Triple Crown-winning sire--was sent to California and trainer Charlie Whittingham in the summer of 1991.

In New York, where the bleeders’ medication Lasix was then prohibited, Flawlessly ran mostly on dirt and won only three of eight starts. For Whittingham, she won 13 of 20 stakes starts, including eight Grade I races, and had earned $2.5 million upon her retirement in 1994.