CHRB to Discuss Funding for Training at Fairplex

About half an hour before post time, the horses arrived in the saddling paddock. After their jockeys climbed aboard, these unraced 2-year-olds were led onto the track at Fairplex Park, with hornblower Jay Cohen, a fixture at Santa Anita and Hollywood Park, sounding the call to post and Mike Willman, a radio-TV personality who wears many hats, announcing to the small crowd that this was the field for the first race.

This might have been a day like any other at the racetrack, except that it was 8 a.m. in Pomona. And there were no mutuel clerks, because there’s no betting on the training races at Fairplex. It would be easy to zero in on a trifecta if there were, because the card last Monday called for eight races, with only four horses in each race.

“The idea is to get these horses ready for the real thing,” said George Bradvica, equine manager for the Los Angeles County Fair. “We’re trying to simulate as much as possible what running in a real race is like. We’ll even lead the winners into the winner’s circle, so they can experience that part of it.”

The fair runs 17 consecutive days of racing at Fairplex every September, but unknown to many people is that Fairplex is a year-round training facility, where public trainers ready their horses for races at Santa Anita, Hollywood Park and Del Mar. There are 400 horses stabled at Fairplex, with room for 300 more. The fair also owns the Barretts sales company, which will conduct another of its auctions of 2-year-olds next month. Grade I winners Sharp Cat, Royal Anthem, Habibti and Officer were sold at this auction, and Jim Henwood, president of the L.A. County Fair Assn., points out that over a recent six-year period, 15% of the starters at California tracks were horses sold at Barretts.

Last year, however, Fairplex closed down its facility for two months, and it may face another tough decision this year after the Thoroughbred Owners of California elected to split a $3-million annual stabling fund between the Pomona site and San Luis Rey Downs, a training center in Bonsall, in northern San Diego County. San Luis Rey Downs, where reigning horse of the year Azeri trained last year, is owned by Frank Stronach’s Magna Entertainment, the same company that owns Santa Anita and other tracks. The issue of full funding for Fairplex will be addressed by the California Horse Racing Board during its meeting in Arcadia today.

Santa Anita will be running a few real races for 2-year-olds in March, and some of the candidates for those events were at Fairplex last Monday. From Del Mar, Fairplex obtained a unique four-horse starting gate that greeted some green horses. One of them, a filly named Rsierra Blanca, left the paddock, took two steps on to the track and reared, dropping jockey Pelon Gonzales to the ground.

Rsierra Blanca ran off, and for a time it looked as if she would be scratched, reducing the four-horse field to only three. But the outriders retrieved Rsierra Blanca from up the chute that leads to the homestretch. A veterinarian, Thomas Hoyme, examined the fidgety filly and cleared her to go postward. In the one-furlong dash, with the four jockeys whooping encouragement to their mounts, Rsierra Blanca finished last.

The last six races were for older horses, running a half-mile. Trainer Jim Cassidy won one of these with a maiden named Passionate War.

“If you had a Deputy Minister in the rough, you wouldn’t bring him out here,” Cassidy said. “But for these California-breds, it’s a great thing. It’s a good education for them before they’re exposed to real racing.”

After the second race, for 2-year-old colts and geldings, Ty The Score was returning to be unsaddled when he reared, and another jockey was down. It was Pelon Gonzales again. These Fairplex training races can be as enlightening for the riders as they are for the horses.