LOS ALAMITOS : Schvaneveldt Has the Final Word

Trainer Blane Schvaneveldt triumphantly chewed his gum and displayed rare emotion Saturday night in the winner’s circle at Los Alamitos.

The usually stoic conditioner had won the Champion of Champions quarter horse race with Dash For Speed for an unprecedented fifth time but this one was special.

Schvaneveldt, a 56-year-old Idaho native, did not become the all-time leader at Los Alamitos by second-guessing his program. Despite two disappointing efforts by Dash For Speed before the $250,000 race, Schvaneveldt calmly maintained that nothing was wrong and his confidence never wavered.

“It’s a great feeling,” said an animated Schvaneveldt. “This one is greater because this mare was beaten twice, and everybody said she was done and we shouldn’t have brought her back.

“She’s been training good all the time but didn’t get away in her last two. Nothing was wrong with her but it was hard to convince her owners she was just losing her back end.

“I had a lot of pressure but pressure doesn’t bother me. I like pressure.

“I never changed one earthly thing since I got her this summer. When you go to changing, you get beat!

“I think this is the toughest field they’ve assembled but when she breaks in front, it takes a good horse to beat her.”

Said co-owner Bobby Blakeman, “Blane’s got to be the king. He can get a horse ready for a race like this better than anybody.”

Added jockey Kip Didericksen, “I told the pony boy going to the gate that I was the winner. I loped her one lap around a week ago Friday, and it was the best she ever tracked. She’s just been going good, and I liked the hole she drew (No. 7) and the way the race set up.”

Although she was the top money-winner in the lineup and was being trained and ridden by meet leaders, Dash For Speed was dismissed at 8-1, the seventh-longest price in the extremely competitive 10-horse field.

Texan Blakeman, who owns the mare in partnership with Colorado cattleman Tom Bradbury, said Dash For Speed has been retired and will be vanned to his 253-acre mare care center 40 miles from Ft. Worth this week.

“We’re going to let her be a mommy,” said Blakeman, who hopes to select a daddy this month.

The owners enjoyed the best of both worlds with her this year, racing her in a bid for world champion honors while a recipient mare carried her first foal after an embryo transplant in April.

The practice is illegal in thoroughbred or standardbred racing but common in the quarter horse industry. The foal, by Streakin Six, is due in March but Dash For Speed will carry her own future foals.

Blakeman credited a medicine to correct a thyroid deficiency in helping her as both a racehorse and mother.

“She had no energy and her metabolism was down so we gave her the powder the last two weeks to get her count back up,” Blakeman said. “We had a hard time getting her in foal at the beginning of the year too. We gave her the powder and right away got an egg.”

The American Quarter Horse Assn. will send out ballots to its 63-member racing committee in early January to determine the world champion.

“I hope we have the good fortune of being chosen,” Blakeman said after the mare’s 22nd victory in 30 starts.

“I like that she’s won 10 Grade I stakes, three more than anybody else. She has won three Grade I races this year, and has career earnings of $1.2 million without ever winning the All-American Futurity. She set a track record winning the Anne Burnett and a stakes record winning the Los Alamitos Championship this summer. And she got rid of the myth that she could only win in New Mexico and couldn’t run at night.”

History leans in Blakeman’s favor. Eleven of 18 winners of the Champion of Champions have gone on to be named world champion, including five of the last six.

Los Alamitos’ off-track business continues to grow. Canterbury Downs in Minnesota and Les Bois Park in Idaho joined the network last month.

“The Capital District of New York, with 53 locations, should be next,” James Smith, executive vice president of the track, said.

“After that, we’ll look to Montana and Mexico. When we hit $710,000 off-track on Breeders Classic night (Nov. 17), I thought that would be high for the meet. But we’ve gone over $750,000 since, and it looks like we’ll hit $800,000 soon.

“We have 50 satellites now and will have 100 within two years,” Smith said.

Los Alamitos Notes

Los Alamitos officials are trying to stage a $100,000 winner-take-all match race between quarter horse Griswold and thoroughbred Valiant Pete on Jan. 11 or 12. Griswold set a world record of :44.07 for 870 yards this month. Valiant Pete set a world mark of :49 1/5 for 4 1/2 furlongs (990 yards) this year. Griswold, Gold Rush Derby winner Genuine Article and Breeders Marathon Classic winner Six Figures are expected to head the lineup Friday in the $25,000 Katella Handicap at 870 yards.

Russell Harris, tied for sixth in the trainer standings with 13 victories, may be in limbo for several weeks, since stewards barred him from entering horses last week. A urine sample on Mighty Dasher, which finished fifth in the 10th race Nov. 8 when Harris trained him, tested positive for cocaine. Harris requested that the second part of the split sample be sent to another lab, in this case Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. Stewards said they will schedule a hearing when they obtain the result. Harris’ previous record is clean.

Harness driver Billy Myer, who died in Delaware last week at 74, won the American Trotting Classic at Hollywood Park in 1970 and ’72 with Dayan. He also won several major stakes in the 1960s with star pacer Romeo Hanover. . . . Dare You To, runner-up in the American Pacing Classic at Los Alamitos and fourth-place finisher in the Breeders Crown Aged Horse Pace, will become the first North American horse to compete in New Zealand’s grueling Inter-Dominion Championship in March.

Trainer Lee Roy Heidelberg, who saddled runner-up Tee Roy Reb in the Champion of Champions, managed a farm for actor Robert Mitchum in Atascadero from 1972-79. . . . Trainer H.L. Hooper, whose favored Heisajoy was bothered by chain-reaction interference and finished sixth (placed fifth), refused to make excuses after the Champion of Champions. “The mare was the better horse tonight,” said Hooper.

Trials are scheduled tonight for the $500,000 Golden State Futurity, the richest race of the meet, Dec. 29.

LOS ALAMITOS LEADERS Through Dec. 15

JOCKEY STARTS 1ST 2ND 3RD WIN % Kip Didericksen 301 48 46 37 16 Eddie Garcia 198 37 28 18 19 Bruce Pilkenton 228 28 34 33 12 Henry Garcia 160 28 15 17 18 John Creager 175 26 23 15 15 Danny Cardoza 156 20 13 22 13 Roman Figueroa 164 17 15 17 10

TRAINER STARTS 1ST 2ND 3RD WIN % Blane Schvaneveldt 279 39 33 34 14 Henry Dominguez 141 24 10 28 17 Rodney Hart 124 23 11 19 19 Bob Baffert 91 20 17 10 22 Bruce Hawkinson 59 15 5 10 25 Frank Monteleone 78 13 11 8 17 Russell Harris 98 13 9 6 13