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McCarron Has New Kentucky Home

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Times Staff Writer

Chris McCarron, the Hall of Fame jockey who was Santa Anita’s general manager and now works there in another executive capacity, will leave the track soon to move to Lexington, Ky., he said Friday.

McCarron said that he planned to start a jockeys’ school in Kentucky.

“There’s been no downside to my two years” in the front office, McCarron said. “In fact, they’ve gone by like a blur.

“But the school is something I’ve had on my mind for some time, and I think it’s time to bite the bullet and get it off the ground.”

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McCarron, 49, said that he would discuss his departure plans next week with Frank Stronach, chairman of Magna Entertainment, which owns Santa Anita.

The current meet ends April 18.

Stronach’s 11 thoroughbred tracks are known for their personnel turnover, and McCarron will be the second Santa Anita executive to leave in recent months. Michael Gilligan, vice president of marketing, left in December, shortly before the meet opened, after about four months on the job.

McCarron retired from riding in 2002, after winning 7,141 races. Hired as Santa Anita’s general manager in March 2003, he was a rarity, a former jockey with a high-profile track management position.

Last September, McCarron turned over the general manager’s job to George Haines, a longtime Santa Anita executive. McCarron was to assume a more wide-ranging role with Magna Entertainment.

His current position at Santa Anita is vice president for industry relations.

“If there’s one thing I learned on this job,” McCarron said, “it’s how complicated the game is. Riding horses, I never knew. It’s not easy getting to the point where you can put on the show for the fans.”

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John Harris, chairman of the California Horse Racing Board, said he was surprised to hear that the Jockeys’ Guild may be seeking legislative changes that would prevent horse owners and breeders from serving on the board.

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Harris, a board member since 2000 and chairman since last January, owns a 400-acre farm near Coalinga that has been breeding and raising thoroughbreds since 1966.

Harris’ filly, Alphabet Kisses, won the $250,000 La Brea Stakes at Santa Anita on Dec. 27.

Barry Broad, an attorney for the national Jockeys’ Guild, said Thursday that the guild hoped to push for legislation that would prevent those with financial stakes in racing from receiving gubernatorial appointments to the board.

“I think it would be unwise to limit who the governor can appoint to a board,” Harris said. “I feel we have a strong, active racing board now. We’ve gotten a lot accomplished, and we can do even more over the next few years.”

Of the seven members on the board, five -- Bill Bianco, Jerry Moss, John Sperry and Richard Shapiro and Harris -- race horses.

“It would be difficult to get people to work as hard as we do for the good of the state and racing if they had no interest at all in horse racing,” Harris said.

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Quintons Gold Rush, last in last year’s Kentucky Derby after running third for the opening half-mile, died this week at the San Luis Rey Equine Hospital in Bonsall, Calif.

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Quintons Gold Rush was to have undergone surgery for a tumor on his nasal passage.

The horse, trained by Mike Mitchell in California and Steve Asmussen in Kentucky, where he won the Lexington Stakes, finished ninth in the Malibu at Santa Anita on Dec. 26.

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Fusaichi Samurai, trainer Neil Drysdale’s promising 3-year-old, may run in the San Vicente on Feb. 13.... Ramon Dominguez, a Maryland jockey, has won the Isaac Murphy Award that goes annually to the rider with the highest winning percentage. Russell Baze, who won the award the first nine years it was given, finished second. Dominguez, who won 383 races, won at a 28.3% rate. Baze, with 321 wins, finished at 27.1%.... Jockey Jorge Chavez won the 4,000th race of his career at Gulfstream Park on Friday.

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