LOS ALAMITOS / HARNESS RACING : Humstinger, Brilliant Colors Find Winning Is Easier in the Southland

Two 3-year-olds who spent the summer racing with some of the nation’s best horses came to California for the weekend and won the premier races for 3-year-old pacers on the fall calendar.

Humstinger, who had finished behind Western Hanover in the Cane Pace and Messenger Stakes this year, won the $150,000 California Pace for 3-year-old colts and geldings on Saturday. Humstinger is owned by Lloyd Arnold and Chris Bardis, the co-owners of Los Alamitos.

On Friday, Brilliant Colors not only won the $75,000 California Pace for 3-year-old fillies, but broke Bag A Few’s 14-month-old track record. Like Western Hanover, Brilliant Colors has spent most of the year on harness racing’s Grand Circuit, which travels the East and Midwest.

Brilliant Colors, driven by D.R. Ackerman and owned by Richard Staley of Los Angeles, won by 4 1/2 lengths in 1:54 3/4, the fastest mile by a filly or mare at Los Alamitos. Staley also finished second with Cadillacing.

Brilliant Colors has won seven of 19 starts this year and nearly $150,000. One of those victories was in the Hayes Memorial at DuQuoin, Ill., which required two races in the same day. That day, Brilliant Colors won the first race, but was disqualified and penalized back to second. In the final, she won by three lengths in a personal-best 1:53 4/5.

Ackerman and his father, Doug, race in California each spring before leaving for the Grand Circuit. Last spring, they had one of the leading stables at Los Alamitos. In the next few weeks, they will choose between returning to California for the winter or racing in Florida.

Harness dates have been allocated at Los Alamitos for the spring and fall of 1993, and a search is under way for an operator. Arnold, who has conducted harness racing at Los Alamitos for the last three years, will quit in November.

“I want to race here next spring, but (the selection of an operator) needs to get squared away soon,” Ackerman said. “I hear lots of stories and I don’t know what to believe.”

Humstinger won a qualifying race in 1:55 3/5, which is faster than many races are run at Los Alamitos, but not as fast as the stakes he had been racing in on the East Coast.

The California Pace was only his second victory in 15 starts this year, but increased his earnings to $247,923. Earlier this year, he was third in the $250,000 Shelly Goudreau Pace at Los Alamitos.

As did Brilliant Colors, he took the lead early and found no challengers, winning by 4 1/4 lengths over You Better You Bet.

“Once he got to the front, he was all business,” winning driver Ross Croghan said.

Humstinger was winless in seven starts in August and September, but was defeated in four of them by Western Hanover, who won two of the three legs of pacing’s triple crown. Humstinger was third behind Western Hanover in the first jewel, the Cane Pace at Yonkers near New York City on Aug. 29, and third in the second jewel, the Messenger Stakes at Rosecroft Raceway in Maryland on Sept. 12.

Arnold and Bardis didn’t send Humstinger to the third leg, the Little Brown Jug in Delaware, Ohio, choosing the California Pace, which didn’t draw enough entries for eliminations.

Later this year, Humstinger will race in the New Jersey Sires Stakes as well as stakes in Chicago and Ontario. The Breeders’ Crown, and another rendezvous with Western Hanover, is not out of the question.

“He’s not the top colt, but he’s in the top six,” Arnold said. “He’s got six or seven races to go this year and he’s the freshest horse on the circuit, but I don’t know if he’s the best.”

Croghan also won the $12,500 Tinsel Town Series final Wednesday with Winning Reason, a 4-year-old pacer trained by Pete Foley. Winning Reason is owned by Winn Schwyhart of Oakland, who also owns Magic Moose, the top trotter in California last spring. They are both out of the same mare, Genes Teacup.

Winning Reason won in 1:56 3/5, a personal best.

On Thursday, trainer Bob Reeser, whose Prince Brian won the $250,00 Shelly Goudreau Pace last spring, won the $12,500 Great Expectations Series final with Forty Four D, a 3-year-old filly whom Reeser drives, trains and co-owns with the Stoltzfus Stable. The filly also paced a lifetime best in the final, finishing the mile in 1:57 3/5 for her sixth victory in 27 starts this year.

Los Alamitos Notes

The California Sires Stakes for 2- and 3-year-old pacers and trotters resume Wednesday with the trotting colts and geldings. Bonefide Boy, who won an invitational trot last Thursday, will be favored in Wednesday’s 10th race, a $16,000 division for 3-year-old colts and geldings.

Thursday’s program has 10 races instead of the normal 12 that have been offered on Thursdays. Two races are simulcasts from Sportsman’s Park and two others are sires stakes for trotting fillies.