NOBLE CAUSE

At 94, spanning the history of thoroughbred racing in California, trainer Noble Threewitt still arrives at his Santa Anita barn at 4 each morning, making the short drive from his San Gabriel home in the sun-bleached Cadillac with the 3WITT license plate.

There was a time when he would stop at an Arcadia convenience store to pick up cigarettes and doughnuts that he would share with barn neighbor Charlie Whittingham as they digested the morning newspapers before sending their first set of horses to the track to train.

Whittingham died in 1999, however, and the cigarettes and doughnuts have become forfeited pleasures, along with all those training sets.

“The problem with living this long,” a realistic Threewitt was saying the other day, “is that I’ve outlived all of the owners who kept me in good horses for so many years. I understand the alternative, but I had four or five owners who would each give me four or five of their top horses every year. I thought it was going to go on forever, but I finally ran out, and there’s nothing much you can do with a bad horse.”

Once the nation’s youngest trainer when he took out his first license at 21 in 1931, Threewitt is now believed to be the oldest.

He has saddled more than 2,000 winners, claimers and stakes horses alike, but he has had only three in training during the current Hollywood Park season, failed to add to his win total, and is too old school to adopt the modern training gig of pursuing clients with a PR and sales campaign.

Yet, Threewitt’s career -- spawned on the Midwest fair circuit and nourished as a teenager during Caliente’s halcyon days in the 1920s -- is still unfolding.

Will the future be as bright as the past? No one can say for sure, but eight decades in both are suddenly in the spotlight.

In recognition of his integrity and contributions to the industry, Threewitt will return to the Hollywood Park winner’s circle on Gold Cup day Saturday to receive the second Laffit Pincay Jr. Award from the retired jockey. Pincay would catch and pass Bill Shoemaker en route to a record 9,530 wins after Threewitt kept him in the saddle during one of the most difficult of many struggles with weight, diet and doubters in the mid-1990s.

“I was in big trouble,” Pincay said in reflection, “and he helped me survive. He put me on his cheap horses and his stakes winners alike ... and people were suddenly saying, ‘Well, maybe Laffit can still ride.’

“I mean, not only has Noble been a great trainer, but he’s been great for racing as well, always there for the little guy. Those are the kind of people you remember the most.”

Threewitt has long been an advocate and more of stable workers’ rights, a supporter of that community within a community, the little guys.

He served six terms as president of the California Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Assn. and remains president of the California Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Foundation, which he helped found and which provides free medical and dental benefits for stable workers and their families out of a Santa Anita clinic that carries his name and where he spends several hours each day after leaving Barn 14, a home away from home since 1948.

“It’s easy to forget your roots,” Threewitt said. “I’ve tried not to do that.”

With the Pincay Award symbolizing in part the help that Threewitt has provided others, a grandson, Chris Chinnici, and his wife, Patricia, have decided to help the helper through a series of major investments designed to fill the vacancies in shed row and invigorate his depleted training stock.

“My wife and I love racing,” said Chinnici, 43 and involved in commercial real estate in Newport Beach. “We’ve been blessed to have my grandparents with us for so long [Threewitt’s wife of 72 years, Beryl, also is 94] and we felt that we were in a position to repay that gift by stepping up and filling the need for more activity in his barn.

“If today’s trainers are focused more on themselves and the money, he’s always cared more about the owners and horses. I mean, people of his generation aren’t salesmen. He had a nucleus of owners who stayed with him for many years and he wasn’t going to conduct a PR campaign to replace them. Maybe what happened is that there are new owners unfamiliar with his career and concerned about his age, but you don’t forget how to do what’s been your life’s work. He also has a lot of good help that has been with him for many years.”

Under the banner of Triple Play Stables, named in honor of their 2-year-old triplets, Chinnici and his wife have replenished Threewitt’s barn and hopes with the following moves:

* The $32,000 claim of a 4-year-old mare, Miss Bleus Cleus, late in the Santa Anita season. She is expected to return at Del Mar, which opens July 20.

* The $62,000 purchase of a 2-year-old colt, Immeasureable Force, and $15,000 purchase of a 2-year-old filly, River Rhythm, during a recent Pomona sale. They are being renamed by the Chinnicis and may be ready to begin racing in the fall.

The Chinnicis also are investigating other possible purchases that could be finalized next week in what would be a major package of horses and dollars.

Thrilled?

“Definitely,” Threewitt said. “I just hope Chris didn’t rob a bank.”

No worry.

“Just the opportunity to talk to him every morning about these horses and racing in general is worth five times what we’ve spent for them,” Chinnici said. “You can sense the smile on his face over the phone.”

Of course, Threewitt is still very much the teenage boy who left his Benton, Ill., home to follow the horses on the Midwest fair circuit. He eventually made his way to Caliente, where he saw the great Phar Lap run -- “for me, the best ever,” he said -- and where he received his trainer’s license and saddled his first winner in 1932 with Harry Henson, later Hollywood Park’s renowned race caller, as the jockey.

Ultimately, Threewitt participated in the opening of every major California track. He won three consecutive training titles at Hollywood Park and won with nine consecutive starters over a six-day span at Tanforan in San Bruno, Calif. He won the 1954 Florida Derby and Wood Memorial with Correlation, fifth as the Kentucky Derby favorite and second in the Preakness while being bumped repeatedly by winner Hasty Road.

“The seven-eighths judge told us we had a legitimate claim, but in those days there, only the owner, trainer or jockey could make the claim,” Threewitt said, “and Shoemaker [who rode Correlation] was the type guy who would almost never make a claim no matter what happened. By the time I got where I needed to be, it was too late.”

Behind the president’s desk at the Santa Anita medical clinic, some memories are clear, some hazy, but Threewitt claims to be in excellent health, and it’s hard to believe the skills have faded.

Forty-six years after Correlation, he won the 2000 Corona Stakes at Hollywood Park with Theresa’s Tizzy when he was 89, just two years after winning the Best Pal Stakes at Del Mar with Old Topper and claiming that was the type of tonic that could add 10 years to his life.

“People are always asking when I’m going to retire,” Threewitt said, “and I always tell them that they’ll have to close the track down first. I have no hobbies. I don’t play golf. I don’t even know how to play checkers.”

He is where he has always wanted to be, and what has been will be celebrated by Pincay on Saturday even as a Threewitt grandson fills a future void in more ways than one. Chris Chinnici’s brother, Greg, began mucking stalls for his grandfather when he was 5 and continued to work as his assistant until being killed in a 1979 car accident while returning to Del Mar from a horse sale in Bonsall.

Now his brother is stepping up, and Noble Winfred Threewitt has even more reason to resist retirement.

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A racing life

Some interesting facts and events in the life of Noble Threewitt, a horse racing trainer whose career has spanned eight decades:

*--* * Birthdate: Feb. 24, 1911 in Benton, Ill. * Wife: Beryl (72 years). * 2005 record: No win, place or shows in five starts. BACKGROUND * Rode at Kansas City fairs in 1930. * Took out a trainer’s license in 1931. * The oldest trainer on the California circuit and believed to be the oldest active in horse racing. * Saw the legendary Phar Lap run at Caliente in 1932. * Moved to California when parimutuel wagering was legalized in the mid-1930s. * Was at the opening of five California racetracks: Bay Meadows, Golden Gate, Santa Anita, Del Mar and Hollywood Park. * Won the Florida Derby and Wood Memorial in 1954 with Correlation, who was favored in the Kentucky Derby but finished fifth. * Barn bears the symbol: 3WITT. Has saddled more than 2,000 winners.

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Source: Hollywood Park

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Hollywood Gold Cup

Entries for the Hollywood Gold Cup. The Grade I stakes is the eighth race on Saturday’s card will be run over 1 1/4 miles on dirt for 3-year-olds and upward. Purse: $750,000.

*--* PP Horse Age Sex Wgt Jockey 1 Limehouse 4 Colt 117 John Velazquez 2 Borrego 4 Colt 115 Garrett Gomez 3 Deputy Lad 5 Gelding 112 Jon Court 4 Pt’s Grey Eagle 4 Gelding 113 Corey Nakatani 5 Anziyan Royalty 5 Horse 115 Alex Solis 6 Congrats 5 Horse 117 Tyler Baze 7 Lava Man 4 Gelding 118 Patrick Valenzuela 8 Musique Toujours 5 Gelding 114 Victor Espinoza 9 Al Arz 6 Horse 113 David Flores 10 Keep On Punching 4 Colt 113 Rene Douglas

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