LOS ALAMITOS : Meeting Ends With Mixed Results

When the sun set Saturday, at about the same time the meeting’s final program began at Los Alamitos, it was unclear when a new day would dawn for California harness racing.

The winter-spring meeting ended with mixed handle figures. The average of $847,975 was comparable to last year’s figure of more than $842,000, but last year’s meeting was spread over four nights of racing a week, this year’s over three. Dropped were Wednesdays, one of the weaker nights of the 1993 meeting.

Sunday, many horsemen began shipping to tracks throughout the nation. Some went to Sacramento, hopeful that the Premier Harness Racing Assn., a consortium of California harness horsemen, can put together a program of summer racing.

On March 25, the PHRA approached the California Horse Racing Board to request six simulcast races from the Meadowlands in East Rutherford, N.J., to be presented before a live program each evening.

The group cited the need for the simulcast races to have any chance of recouping their investment. The Sacramento meeting has reportedly lost money in 20 of the last 22 years that racing has been held there, according to one industry official.

The CHRB approved only simulcast races for the beginning of the Sacramento meeting, and it would drop to three after June 15, when an influx of 2-year-olds would probably alleviate any horse shortages.

Quarter horse interests, which would be offering live races at Los Alamitos simultaneously, opposed the plan. Quarter horse representatives reportedly told PHRA members that they wanted an “impact fee� from the New Jersey simulcasts.

Dissatisfied PHRA members have spent the last few weeks campaigning with CHRB members to have six simulcast races approved in time for Sacramento’s proposed opening day of April 29.

“We’ve had no conclusive answers,� influential trainer Bobby Gordon said. “It’s not going good. We haven’t been able to come to any agreement with the quarter horse industry. They would like an impact fee for bringing the signal into Los Alamitos, and there’s no way we can do that.

“The horsemen need racing. They’re not in a position to lay up for two or three months.�

As of Saturday, the PHRA was hoping that horsemen would ship to Sacramento for the coming season, and many were planning to do so. A meeting among Gordon, CHRB Chairman Ralph Scurfield and Ed Allred, a 50% owner of Los Alamitos and the state’s leading quarter horse promoter, has been scheduled for this week.

Los Alamitos Notes

Rick Plano was the Los Alamitos meeting’s leading driver and trainer. He had 42 winners to 40 for runner-up James Lackey in the drivers’ standings, and he caught Frank Sherren in the final weeks to win the drivers’ title, 34-32. Sherren had the meeting’s top 3-year-old trotters in the filly Lil Eggie and the colt Hunter’s Key. The filly Fast N Loose and the colt Maxanali were the best of the 3-year-old pacers. . . . Saturday’s handle of $1,210,606 was the highest of Los Alamitos’ 39 nights of harness racing.