Page 38 - 22 June 2012

Alamitos in ’83, and chalked up a superior racehorse title in ’84. In 1985, she set a new track record of :17.580 over 350 yards at Grants Pass Downs in Oregon.
Chi Cheng also produced Chieno’s full brother Beda Cheng in 1983. In his freshman year, he won the Grants Pass Futurity (now the Firecracker Futurity)
at Grants Pass, Oregon, and beat his sister’s track record, covering 350 yards
in :17.560. Beda Cheng’s stakes wins include the Mr. California Handicap at Los Alamitos in 1988. He later went on to earn Oregon’s leading sire title 10 times.
“All Chi Cheng’s foals became famous,” Carl said. “Bob Baffert once said, ‘You could breed that mare to a pig and get a racehorse.’”
HIS TRAINERS LIST
Baffert was Carl’s first trainer. “I was with him about two years and then he moved into Thoroughbreds,” Carl said of the top-echelon trainer.
Carl then went with Californians Chuck and Debi Treece, who are based at Los Alamitos. When Carl moved from California to Oregon, he chose John Harris and has been with him ever since. “That’s one thing we insist on,” Raney said “—keeping John Harris as our trainer.”
“Carl never pushes,” Harris said. “He totally trusts me as his trainer. He never demands that I do anything out of line, like run a sore horse—he always has the
Beda Cheng.
final say, but he lets me make the deci- sion. It’s a good feeling to know one of your owners trusts you like that.”
THE NEXT CHAPTER
Carl had two children with his first wife— Jeri, 70, and Smokey, now age 68. He later adopted two daughters, Irena and Audrey. By the time Carl got involved in racehorses, they were grown and forging their own lives.
In 1991 Carl met his wife, Raney,
at the nearby Selma restaurant that she owned with her parents. “I was a jokester and he was a jokester and so we hit it off real good,” Raney said. “We became really good friends and it just went from there.”
They married shortly after, around the time Carl was racing Champion Distance Horse Baychaino, who was out of Carl’s Merridoc-Chi Cheng mare Chieno. Carl and Raney couldn’t have kids of their own, and because of their age difference, were placed at the bottom of the adoption list. So they started taking in foster kids. “You can find one in his lap about 80 percent of the time,” Raney said.
Carl and Raney now share their home with 6-year-old Destiny; her 5-year-old sister, Naomi; their 4-year-old brother, Isaac; Braden, a 5-year old with Down syndrome; and 3-year-old David, whom they’ve had since he was born, and whose adoption is almost final. “We got into foster kids hoping that one would come up for adoption,” Carl said. “Finally
after all those foster kids, we were able to adopt David.”
Cruisin For Curtis and jockey Becky Abernathy win the 2007 Baxter Andruss Oregon Bred Futurity at Portland Meadows.
Rogere’ Nielson
Reed Palmer Photography
Speedhorse Files
Bradens Bustlinbooty (inside) and jockey Antonio Alberto win the 2011 Firecracker Futurity at Grants Pass Downs.