Pedroza glad to get first win since injury
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CYPRESS, Calif. – Jockey Martin Pedroza was eight races into his comeback from a shin injury when he won on Thursday aboard Chattering Class in a maiden claimer at Los Alamitos.
Headed toward the winner’s circle, Pedroza was swept by a sense of relief and satisfaction. The result was what he said he needed to show others that he had recovered.
“I know I’m fit, but trainers want to see you ride and they want to see you win,” Pedroza said.
Pedroza was sidelined by a fractured shin sustained at Santa Anita in early February. He resumed exercising horses in mid-June and began riding on June 22. Pedroza had five mounts at Santa Anita on June 27 and June 29, including a second in a starter handicap over 1 1/4 miles on turf before the start of the Los Alamitos meeting on Thursday.
Chattering Class was Pedroza’s second mount on Thursday. He was later sixth on Rousing Sermon in the Bertrando Stakes.
Pedroza, 48, rode at the Orange County Fair Thoroughbred meeting at Los Alamitos in the 1980s and early 1990s before the meeting was discontinued in 1991. The Orange County Fair was run on the five-eighths mile track. For the current meeting, the track has been extended, by three furlongs, to slightly less than a mile.
The new configuration was built in December and January and used for the first time in races on Thursday. The course is different than most, with an undulation on the backstretch and a slight shift to the right before the turn. The stretch is the longest in the nation, at 1,380 feet.
For Pedroza, a different layout was not a concern.
“I like it,” he said. “We’re professional. Once you ride it one time, you figure it out.”
Sunday, Pedroza has four mounts on a nine-race program plagued by short fields. Among his mounts are Peacenluvpeacenluv, a colt by Artie Schiller who makes his first career start for trainer Peter Miller in a maiden race for 2-year-olds. Miller is also the trainer of Chattering Class.
Overall, Sunday’s program drew only 59 entrants, or 6.5 starters per race. The largest fields are the seventh and ninth races, with eight entrants in each. Thursday’s eight-race program had 67 runners in eight races, or 8.3 runners per race.
Familiar territory for Dominguez
There was no time for nostalgia for trainer Caesar Dominguez after Desert Thief won a maiden race for 2-year-old California-breds on Thursday.
Dominguez, 64, trained a Quarter Horse stable at Los Alamitos in the 1980s and early 1990s before moving to the Southern California Thoroughbred circuit. He had a successful stable at Los Alamitos, winning multiple stakes with such prominent runners as Truly a Pleasure and Takin on the Cash, who won the 1990 Golden State Futurity.
Those wins were not on his mind when Desert Thief won the third start of her career.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I ran a horse here 30 days ago that won a $2,500 claimer. I felt as good winning that race as I do now.”
Dominguez co-owns Desert Thief with William Foltz. Thursday, Desert Thief, who is by Desert Code, closed from third in a field of 10 to win the five-furlong race by 1 3/4 lengths over the first-time starter Tatum’s Gold. Desert Thief ($7.40) was timed in 57.87 seconds.
The win by Desert Thief will lead to a start in the $150,000 Generous Portion Stakes for California-bred fillies over six furlongs at Del Mar on Aug. 27. Dominguez described the $100,000 CTBA Stakes over 5 1/2 furlongs on July 18 “as too quick back.”
“She looks like a nice filly,” he said.
As for the rest of the Los Alamitos meeting, which runs through July 13, Dominguez expects to be active. He starts the $8,000 claimer Forever Freedom in Sunday’s ninth race.
“It’s a nice little track,” he said. “I hope they do good. I can run a horse almost every day.”