PERSISTENCE FINALLY PAYING OFF FOR JOCKEY.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI Horse Racing 

INGLEWOOD - It has been a frustrating journey for Felipe Martinez from shining shoes for 25 cents in Guadalajara to delivering a polished ride in a $60,000 stakes race at Hollywood Park.

Martinez never saw a racetrack until he was 18. After following older brother Rafael to Los Angeles, he tried grooming horses but discovered he's allergic to hay. Hired by trainer Mary Lou Tuck to walk horses, he was fired after panicking and letting one enormous beast run off.

``I liked horses, but I was a little bit afraid of them,'' said Martinez, able to laugh at the memory now that he's 40. ``They're really big. I found out it's better to be on top of them.''

This was more than 20 years ago, and Martinez had a lot to learn before he would become a Hollywood Park stakes-winning jockey, a rank he attained by piloting a 3-year-old colt named Whilly to a 1 1/4-mile victory for trainer Doug O'Neill in the $63,325 Bien Bien Stakes on Nov. 6.

Jockeys' agent Alex Procel used to see Martinez toiling at trainer John Gosden's barn and tried to persuade the 5-foot-1, 105-pounder to try riding. Martinez was embarrassed by his fear. Sometimes he saw the agent coming and hid.

Procel finally persuaded Martinez to go to work at a Palmdale thoroughbred farm to get experience in the saddle, and he told Martinez it would take a year to acquire the skills to compete.

``He came back about two months later and said, 'I'm ready!' '' said Procel, now Martinez's agent. ``I said, 'No, you're not.' ''

Booking his own mounts on the major racing circuit of Hollywood Park, Santa Anita and Del Mar, Martinez predictably found no success. He turned to Agua Caliente racetrack in Tijuana but couldn't win there either. He finally located the winner's circle at Exhibition Park (now Hastings Park) in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Martinez, 26 by then, returned to California to find his early reputation for erratic riding difficult to shake.

Without the backing of top trainers who could put him on contending horses, the late bloomer seemed to be stuck on the outside looking in, disrespected by the jockeys in the elite top 10.

``They'd be my friend in the (jockeys' room), but not on the racetrack,'' said Martinez, who lives in Sunland with his wife and three children and is an amateur gardener in his spare time. ``I said, 'They're not going to intimidate me.' That's why I'm still here. I'd see these guys with the big names, the good jockeys, and I admired them. But they'd try to push you around. I took it personally. I used to fight everybody.

``Now I'm older. I'm more calm.''

Whilly, a 3-1 shot who rallied from fourth in a five-horse field in a 1-mile turf race, was one of Martinez's eight winners in the first nine days of the Hollywood Park season, a total that briefly put him in a tie with Tyler Baze and Rene Douglas atop the track jockey standings. Going into Thursday's races, Martinez was tied for fifth, three behind leader David Flores. Anybody betting to win on all of his mounts would have cashed 19 percent of the time and counted a 14-percent profit.

Back when Doug O'Neill was working for trainer Hector Palma and Martinez was a fledgling jockey, O'Neill promised Martinez they'd make a winning team someday. O'Neill has become one of California's leading trainers and remains Martinez's most important backer.

``I consider myself a blue-collar trainer, and he's a poster boy for a blue-collar rider,'' O'Neill said. ``He gives you 100 percent whether he's on a 3-1 shot or a 100-1 shot.''

Martinez's persistence made him a favorite of the people he rode for. His never-say-die approach made him popular with fans whose trifecta bets depend not only on who wins a race but who finishes second and third. But his often-frantic efforts to hustle long shots into contention made him a hazard to fellow jockeys and the target of frequent suspensions in his early days.

``That's the thing that's gotten him in trouble,'' said Tom Ward, Hollywood Park's chief steward. ``Trying too hard.''

How else could he have gotten from there to here?

Martinez, the son of a corn farmer, was born in the pueblo of Cuquio in the Mexican state of Jalisco. He said he has 20 siblings and half-siblings. From age 12 to 15, he shined shoes, lugging his rags and brushes through the streets of Guadalajara looking for customers in offices and shops.

Pocketing 3 pesos for a regular shine, 5 pesos for the high-quality polish, Martinez earned the money that would pay for his trip to the United States.

``He's come a long way, man,'' said Ruben Hernandez, the Hollywood Park clerk of scales who worked for Gosden at the same time as Martinez. ``I'm proud of him.''

Whilly is a candidate to run in the $500,000 Hollywood Derby, the Nov. 28 race that will cap Hollywood Park's Thanksgiving week festival of turf stakes. If the colt cracks the strong field, it likely will mark the first time his jockey has competed in a Grade I event. If that doesn't happen, this still will have been the best meet of Martinez's slow-starting career.

Looking back, he said, ``I never thought it could be like this now.''

OUT OF THE GATE

A WEEK AT THE RACES 

The first meeting is scheduled Monday in Kentucky for the committee formed to study the health insurance issue that has led to jockeys' boycotts at Churchill Downs and Hoosier Park. The jockeys and their guild are pushing for Churchill to offer supplemental insurance to cover hospital bills stemming from racing injuries. Churchill covers the first $100,000 in medical expenses, but jockeys pay for any additional coverage. The 32-member panel, formed by the National Thoroughbred Racing Association, includes jockeys Jerry Bailey and Pat Day, as well as trainers, owners and industry executives. ... Breeders' Cup Turf winner Better Talk Now will make his next start in the Dec. 4 Hollywood Turf Cup, Maryland-based trainer Graham Motion said. Hollywood Park expects to have three Breeders' Cup champions during its current meet, with Juvenile winner Wilko in the Dec. 18 Hollywood Futurity and Juvenile Fillies winner Sweet Catomine in the Dec. 19 Hollywood Starlet. ... Declan's Moon, the Del Mar Futurity winner who skipped the Breeders' Cup, has seven opponents in Saturday's Hollywood Prevue as he and jockey Victor Espinoza prep for the Futurity. ... Kerwin John, who suffered a pelvic fracture when a Marcelo Polanco-trained maiden fell on him Monday morning at Santa Anita, plans to recuperate in his native St. Croix and return to riding at the Santa Anita meet that opens Dec. 26. ... Trainer Steve Asmussen, based mostly in the Midwest and East, is closing in on Jack Van Berg's 1976 record of 496 victories in a year. Asmussen went into Thursday's races with 486. ... Ouija Board, the Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Turf winner, was named Europe's Horse of the Year Wednesday in London. The 3-year-old filly won the English and Irish Oaks and ran third in the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe. ... Santa Anita announced changes in its stakes schedule for 3-year-olds that should please trainers who complained the races' distances lacked a logical progression. The 1-mile San Rafael moves to Jan. 15 (from March), and the 1 1/16-mile Santa Catalina moves to March 5 (from January). The 1 1/16-mile San Felipe holds its spot on March 19. The races are steppingstones to the 1 1/8-mile Santa Anita Derby on April 9, the major West Coast prep for the 1 1/4-mile Kentucky Derby on May 7.

CAPTION(S):

photo, box

Photo:

Felipe Martinez is enjoying the best meet of his frustrating career, with eight wins in the first nine days at Hollywood Park.

Hollywood Park

Box:

OUT OF THE GATE (see text)

- Kevin Modesti and Associated Press