By Mark Ratzky, publicity – Cal Expo Harness
Track record holder
Pridecrest, who has won eight of his nine starts at the meet, looks to put an exclamation
mark on his California invasion in Friday night’s featured $10,000 Stan
Bergstein Trot at Cal Expo.
A 10-race card is on tap
under the Watch and Wager LLC banner with first post set for 6:40 p.m. The
co-feature is the $6,000 finale of the Watch and Wager Loyalty Pace and there
will also be two California Sire Stakes for 3-year-olds decided as a
non-betting events prior to the regular program.
Pridecrest is a 6-year-old
son of Angus Hall who races for Heather Matthews with Luke Plano driving and
training. He made an immediate impact in his first start coming in from the
Midwest on November 3, making every pole a winning one while setting a new
course standard with his 1:53 2/5 clocking.
The Matthews colorbearer
followed that impressive mile with five more straight scores, the last four
being registered from the demanding No. 10 post position. Pridecrest tasted
defeat locally for the first time on March 3 when he was beaten a neck by
Talkin Tootsie, but has returned to his winning ways in his last two
appearances.
Plano romped home with the
sidewheeler on March 16 while leaving from the No. 5 slot, then had that 10
hole assignment last week and it proved to be no obstacle as he went
wire-to-wire with a length and three-quarters to spare at the wire.
Talkin Tootsie is the only
trotter to have finished ahead of Pridecrest at this meet, hanging that neck
decision on him in early March, and completed the exacta last week. The Cantab
Hall mare is owned by Martin Garey and Henry Wieseneck with Bob Johnson
training and Mooney Svendsen in his usual spot in the sulky.
Completing the Bergstein
field are Windsun Galaxe, Silverlode, Franky Provolone, Dougs Hobby Horse and
Franks Best.
Races honor memory of Bergstein, Arnold
Lloyd
Arnold and Stan Bergstein, two legendary figures in harness racing, have races
named in their honor this weekend at Cal Expo.
The
Lloyd Arnold Pace will be decided on Saturday night, while the Stan Bergstein
Trot headlines Friday’s program.
Lloyd
Arnold was an owner and track operator of the highest caliber.
He passed away
in 2012 at the age of 83. Originally the owner of Arnold Cattle Co. in Iowa,
Mr. Arnold raced hundreds of horses in Illinois and across the Midwest
throughout the 1960s and early 1970s.
During
that era, Mr. Arnold raced horses like Warm Breeze, who earned more than
$250,000 in two seasons of racing in the mid-1970s, and Dancing David, who
earned more than $200,000 in the 1960s. Warm Breeze took Mr. Arnold to racing’s
pinnacle for the first time when he set the all-age world record over this
track, then known as Golden Bear Raceway.
His
top horses in later years included the pacing mare Sanabelle Island, who earned
$1.6 million lifetime and won 57 of 110 starts. Also of note was Bagel Beach
Boy, who won the 2001 Messenger and Matron stakes.
In
August 2003, Mr. Arnold bought Chevie Duramax, who then went on to set world
records for 2-year-old pacing geldings on both mile and half-mile tracks. The
fastest 3-year-old pacer in North America in 2004 belonged to Mr. Arnold as
Quik Pulse Mindale won in 1:48 at Balmoral.
In
addition to being a prominent Standardbred owner, Mr. Arnold operated this
track during those Golden Bear Raceway years and also bought Los Alamitos in
the late 1980s, eventually selling the track to his partner, Ed Allred.
Mr.
Arnold was inducted into the California Harness Hall of Fame in April of 2008.
He also enjoyed personal honors in 2001 when he was feted by the Delaware
Sportswriters and Broadcasters at their annual awards dinner and received the
Owner of the Year Award from the U.S. Harness Writers' Association.
Chris
Bardis said, “Harness racing was one of Lloyd's great passions. He accomplished
so much for the sport not only in California, but nationwide. He was ‘Mr.
Harness Racing.’
“He
conducted race meetings at Cal Expo, Bay Meadows, Golden Gate Fields, Del Mar,
Pomona, Hollywood Park and Los Alamitos. I know of no one else who has had a
greater impact on the harness world.”
Friday’s
Stan Bergstein Trot is named for the legendary figure in harness racing who passed
away in 2011 at the age of 87.
Mr.
Bergstein was a harness racing titan who advocated for cooperation between the
Standardbred and Thoroughbred industries to solve the sports' common problems.
He
stepped down in 2011 after many years as the executive vice president of
Harness Tracks of America, the Standardbred industry's trade association. He
was immediately appointed as the organization's first executive emeritus, and
continued to advise the association and write guest columns for the Daily
Racing Form until the weeks before his death.
The
only person to ever be inducted into the Harness Racing Hall of Fame and its
Communicators Hall of Fame, Mr. Bergstein worked in a wide variety of roles at
racetracks, auction houses, announcer's booths, and racing publications, and he
maintained extensive collections of harness-racing books and artwork.
He
was widely respected not only in the harness industry, but also in the
Thoroughbred industry, and he served as a mentor to generations of young racing
professionals through a close association with the University of Arizona Race
Track Industry Program, located in Tucson, for the past 40 years.
Mr.
Bergstein was a forceful proponent of forging closer ties between the
Standardbred and Thoroughbred industries, most notably in tackling medication
abuse and problems with drug testing. In dozens of commentaries, Mr. Bergstein
maintained that the Standardbred industry's problems were, or would be, those
of the Thoroughbred industry, and that neglect of a problem in one sport would
damage the other.
Mr.
Bergstein borrowed from the Thoroughbred industry early in his career,
incorporating claiming races as a racing secretary while working at the Chicago
tracks in the 1950s. At the time, the harness racing industry did not run
claiming races, and they are now as commonplace in Standardbred racing as they
are in Thoroughbred racing.
Mr.
Bergstein also spearheaded the creation of Standardbred Investigative Services,
a security agency modeled after the Thoroughbred Racing Protective Bureau.
A
native of Illinois, Mr. Bergstein attended harness races as a young man and
received a journalism degree from Northwestern University. He was the former
executive editor of Hoof Beats magazine, and the former vice president
of publicity and public relations for the United States Trotting Association.
Cal
Expo trackman/program director Marty Bridges credits Stan Bergstein with
bringing him into harness racing as a profession.
“After
college and two years in the Army, I was employed by the small business
association. At night, after work, I was a regular patron at Sportsman’s Park
and Maywood in Chicago.
“My
supervisor, a former sportswriter for the Chicago Daily News, knew of my
interest and called Stan to set up a meeting.
Surprisingly, I was to meet him
at Du Quoin on Hambletonian Day. Watching Stan call the races from a slightly
elevated booth on the infield adjacent to the finish line was thrilling and
between races we talked about racing, horses, drivers and trainers.
“His
knowledge of the sport was amazing and I had never met anyone like him, and
still haven’t. He introduced me to John Tinsley, the program director for all
the Chicago tracks and John hired me on the spot. It’s been a great ride, doing
something I love.”
Gene
Vallandingham first met Stan Bergstein in 1959 when he was working for the
legendary Joe O’Brien.
“Stan
came to Joe’s farm every spring for the annual Camptown racing weekend, when
all of Shafter would be there for a day of racing. Stan was the true voice of
harness racing, he was liked by all and I miss him.”
Chris
Schick said, "Stan was foremost a kind and compassionate person. He was a
true visionary in the harness racing industry. In 1979, well before
simulcasting, he so rightly stated the future of the industry was in how well
we brought the product to the public. He was also very vocal of the industry
for being reluctant to embrace change. Our industry lost a giant when he
passed.”
