LOS ALAMITOS : Positron Provides Positive Boost for the Fortunes of Trainer Pena

Lou Pena can credit his success this year to a 6-year-old horse named Positron, the number one horse in the 24-year-old trainer’s barn for the last four years and the fastest horse at Los Alamitos this spring.

Pena has been in the top 10 in both the driver and trainer standings at Los Alamitos this season, a far cry from his position last fall, when he won only eight of 88 attempts and finished 19th in the standings. Through Saturday, he had driven only 20 races and the meeting still has two weeks remaining.

“It’s been a tremendous year,” he said. “The stable’s exploded. Before, I couldn’t get many (catch) drives. This meet’s not over and I have over 100 drives. Before, I’d be lucky to get 50 drives and win eight or 10 races.

“I’m a year older and the horses that I’m carrying are a little better. Positron stands by himself, but my cheap horses fit their brackets a little better.”

He credits much of the success to Positron, who Pena has raced each week this season in the invitational handicap, the top race for older pacers. The horse has given Pena a weekly spotlight and has led to opportunities with other trainers, who have called on him to drive their horses.

“Without him, I’d have seven or eight horses and probably not as much popularity,” he said. “I’d have maybe five drives a week.”

Pena purchased Positron as a 2-year-old in early 1989 at a sale in Pomona. He attended the sale with Andy Taylor of Whittier, a longtime harness fan who was interested in a racing prospect. Taylor gave Pena $10,000 for the sale, looking for a horse for the state-bred sires stakes.

“I told him I wasn’t sure about spending that much money on a baby,” Pena said. “But (Andy) wanted something for the stakes.

“When I saw (Positron) at the sale, I said, ‘That’s a pretty horse,’ and we agreed that he wasn’t bad looking,” Pena said. “So I said, ‘Let’s take a gamble.’ We bid on him, got him and we were done for the day.”

Pena paid $500.

The sires stakes are held during the 2- and 3-year-old seasons, but Positron made only one start at 2, finishing seventh in a cheap maiden race in July of 1989, at Sacramento. Pena pulled the horse off the track for surgery to remove bone chips in his knees.

He didn’t start again until March of 1990, but returned a much better horse. He was competitive through the spring and summer, and improved greatly during the fall at Los Alamitos. He won the California Breeders Stakes for 3-year-old pacers, his first stakes victory. He followed with a second in the Electioneer Futurity, ending the year with more than $48,000 in earnings. Nearly two years after the sale, Taylor owned a stakes winner.

“We started him in March (of 1990) and we never had any trouble (with soundness),” Pena said. “I think I’m just blessed. I race him week after week, and he just goes.”

In 1991, Pena raced Positron in California and New Jersey, shifting to the East Coast after the California season ended in July. Positron’s career was on an upswing. His victories weren’t as frequent or as rapid as during his 3-year-old season, but they were coming against better horses.

The trip east included a victory in a conditioned race at the Meadowlands in New Jersey, considered the nation’s top harness track. The winning time of 1:53 3/5 was a career best.

“Winning at the Meadowlands was like winning my first drive,” Pena said. “That felt good. He was against horses who’d paced (a mile in 1:51). All the top drivers came up to me afterward and shook my hand.”

The Meadowlands victory was Positron’s last of 1991 and proved to Pena that the horse could compete with the nation’s finest.

In terms of prize money, 1992 was Positron’s best season, but Pena wasn’t able to enjoy it. He was out of action until late May while serving a six-month suspension handed down by the New Jersey Racing Commission in November of 1991. He was allegedly involved in a horse-tampering incident along with fellow California horsemen Eddie Hensley and Steve Hyman, both of whom were suspended.

Pena trained the horse during the winter of 1991-92, but when the horses went to Los Alamitos, he went to a local farm looking for work.

“It was hard to get by,” he said. “I barely survived it, those were hard times for sure. I think they made examples of us. We weren’t from New Jersey, and were too broke to afford lawyers.”

Pena resumed training at Sacramento last summer. In 1992, Positron earned more than $92,000, winning eight of 28 starts. For the most part, he stuck to the California circuit, although at the end of October, Pena took Positron to Cloverdale in British Columbia, where he finished third in the B.C. Classic, a race that might also be on this year’s agenda.

Last year was his first full year of racing in invitational and preferred handicaps, the top two categories for older pacers, and included a career-best winning time of 1:53. This year, all 11 of his starts have been in the invitational handicap. He has won five races and finished among the top three 11 times. Only Camaraderie, the top pacer in Rick Plano’s barn, has been as consistent in the invitational division.

Over the last two weeks, Positron has been unstoppable. He won the invitational handicap on April 3 by 3 1/4 lengths in 1:53 2/5 and Saturday beat the same horses by 6 1/2 lengths, completing the mile in 1:53 1/5, the fastest mile of the winter-spring meeting.

“I told (driver) Eddie (Hensley) in the warm-up that he’d go an unbelievable mile,” Pena said. “I don’t understand it, but he’s been acting good around the barn.”

The recent form has forced Pena to consider sending the horse to Chicago after the harness meeting ends on April 24. In Chicago, Positron would face a much tougher class of horse, but would also race for considerably more money than California racing offers.

“We’ll probably go to Chicago,” he said. “They don’t have enough money for him in Sacramento. (Positron’s) more mature now. He has more experience and his attitude is better. He’s turned a little more aggressive in the barn, but he knows when to get on the bit.”

Pena was 19 when he began training Positron. It was his first year as a licensed trainer, although he had been around the races for several years. His father, Vincent, worked on the backstretch and is still involved in the sport, serving as farm manager for Lonnie Beck, who last year campaigned Tony’s Best, the top 3-year-old filly trotter in California.

Pena left school at 13 and began working as a groom on the backstretch. In 1986, at 16, he started driving and won his first race in his seventh start. Seven years later, he acknowledges that he still has a lot to learn as a driver.

“I’m still finding myself in spots where I’m talking to myself after the race, saying: ‘I know I shouldn’t have been there.’ It comes with experience.”

“I like catch-driving, but I can’t get enough (drives) to worry about it,” Pena said. “I have to rely on my training.”

Pena will race at Sacramento this summer, most likely splitting his time between Chicago and Sacramento, depending on what he does with Positron. He says the four months between the end of Sacramento in August and the opening of Los Alamitos in December is too long to stay on the sidelines.

When he does return in December, Positron probably will be with him. In each of the last three years, Pena has guided Positron to victory on opening weekend, giving hunch players something worth noting for December.

“It’s like a tradition for him to win his first start of the meeting,” he said.