Busy weekend for Hendricks

DEL MAR, Calif. – Trainer Dan Hendricks has a busy weekend ahead of him. He’ll be sending out Om in the Grade 3, $150,000 La Jolla Handicap on Sunday at Del Mar but will be jetting out to Colorado Springs, Colo., on Friday to see his father inducted into the Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame on Saturday.

“It works out so I can make it back for the race,” Hendricks said.

Hendricks’s father, Lee, 91, and his twin brother, Byron – who died in 1996 – were known as the Flying Twins and did tricks on horseback for more than 25 years, not only at rodeos but on popular television shows of the era like “To Tell the Truth” and “The Ed Sullivan Show.” They also appeared in movies.

Their most famous stunt was jumping horses over a parked car Roman style – each rider having one foot in the stirrup of adjoining horses – while each rider traveled in opposite directions, which sounds dangerous, but considering that both were paratroopers in the Army during World War II, perhaps not so much to them.

After leaving the rodeo world, the Hendricks brothers trained racehorses and were sought after for dealing with the most difficult animals.

Hendricks said his father “still rides his bike five miles to the beach each day.”