After leaving harness racing for about 12 years, Ed Actkinson once again has trotters and pacers carrying his banner and according to the owner, “so far, so good.”

With good friend Bob Johnson doing the training, Actkinson is campaigning the pacing mare Dont Hurry Love, who accounted for the Bob Staats Series final earlier in the meeting and goes in Friday night’s second race. He also owns the hard-knocking trotter Chevie Balboa.

Actkinson originally got into the game some 40 years ago, following in the footsteps of his father, Paul.

“My dad had quarter horses at Los Alamitos and after a few years of watching him race, I got into the quarters for about six years,” he said.

It was the elder Actkinson who eventually switched over to harness racing and once again after seeing the fun he was having, Ed decided to do the same. He was a steady owner for nearly 20 years while having Johnson, Bobby Gordon, Paul Blumenfeld and Frank Sherren as his trainers.

“We never had any big name horses, but we did pretty well,” Actkinson related. “Two of my favourites during that period would be Bonnie Bo Scott, who was from New Zealand, and a horse named Wrangler Hanover.”

The Downey native decided to disperse his stable about a dozen years ago, around the same time the trotters and pacers stopped competing at Los Alamitos and moved up to Cal Expo on a full-time basis.

“I still stayed good friends with Bob, and several months ago I mentioned I was getting a little bored and asked him to see if he could find me some horses. We ended up buying Dont Hurry Love and Chevie Balboa from Indiana, and wouldn’t you know it, they both won their first starts for us on the same night.”

A pair of $4,500 Open 2 pacing events are the featured attractions on Friday’s Cal Expo program with Docs Zippy getting top billing in the first while Rd Iou attempts a curtain call in the contest for the distaffers, which also includes Dont Hurry Love in the field.

(With files from Cal Expo)