You call them hurdles, he calls them feathers

When Jonathan Cabral of Agoura broke a Marmonte League record in the 110-high hurdles that had lasted for 35 years, it was the strongest indication yet that the slender 6-foot-3, 180-pound junior had reached a level of excellence every teenage athlete dreams of.

In finishing with a time of 13.70 seconds, the fastest clocking in California this year and the third fastest in the nation, Cabral proved the old adage that practice makes perfect -- he cleared each of the 10 hurdles as though they didn’t exist.

“The hurdles pretty much became invisible,” he said of his May 7 performance.

He has spent countless hours mastering a technique that seems simple enough. For every three steps, you jump over a 39-inch hurdle while trying not to slow down. But why do athletes hit hurdles, stumble and even fall?

“You just get that power and speed combination, with all that skill, and you blow through the hurdles,” Cabral said. “They feel like a feather.”

Of course, Cabral also knows when a hurdle feels like a brick wall. It happened last June at the state championships. In the 110 prelims, he fell and was disqualified. Months of training and preparation were laid to waste. He felt anger and disgust.

“I remember walking off to the side and punching the ground and somebody coming over to me and saying, ‘It’s OK. It happens to everybody,’ ” he said.

That lesson in disappointment is one of the motivations for Cabral, who will compete Saturday at the Southern Section track-and-field championships at Cerritos College in the Division 3 finals in the 110 highs and 300 intermediate hurdles.

He has helped restore some glamor to an event that has lost its best performer, world champion D.J. Morgan of Woodland Hills Taft, to a football injury. Cabral has been racing Morgan since their early youth. He never has beaten him.

“It would have been real exciting,” Cabral said. “I was looking forward to racing him this year.”

Morgan, a senior headed to USC, is starting to jog after undergoing knee surgery. He said he had seen Cabral run this season.

“He’s always been competitive,” Morgan said. “Now he’s causing havoc. It would have been fun, but this year, I was planning on breaking the record, and he would have to be on record pace.”

The state record is 13.39, set in 2004 by Kevin Craddock of Richmond James Logan, but whether Cabral can approach that remains to be seen. What isn’t in doubt is Cabral’s steady rise to success.

His father, John, introduced him to the hurdles before he was 10. He remembered several of his childhood friends who weren’t as fast received college scholarships running the hurdles, so he was determined to make sure his son didn’t miss out. He has been his longtime coach.

“I’m extremely amazed,” his father said. “He’s grown it seems like 6 inches in the last three years. As a parent, it’s hard to say how excited I am.”

Cabral’s technique provides an edge. He hasn’t broken 11 seconds in the 100 meters, but his hurdle times are dropping because he’s getting stronger and more efficient clearing the hurdles. And as he becomes faster, that’s when he figures to take another jump in the event.

He played cornerback for the football team last fall, but his father has told him that his football days are over because of injury concerns.

The hurdles have become his focus, and the rest of the state is about to find out how good he has become.

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