The Mr Jess Perry daughter Jess A Classy Lassy broke her maiden with a stunning 2 3/4-length victory to post the fastest qualifying time from 18 trials to the Grade 1, $625,000 Rainbow Futurity on Friday, July 6 at Ruidoso Downs.
Trained by Heath Taylor, Jess A Classy Lassy raced the 400 yards in :19.432 under G.R. Carter, in her second career start. She made her only other start at Remington Park in Oklahoma City on April 29, where she finished third.
“When we ran her at Remington, we were thinking about the Heritage Place Futurity,” said owner-breeder Abrams. “She got in trouble and then closed so well that we changed our plan and started thinking about longer futurities, like the Rainbow and the All American.”
B. Marcus Smith’s Early Morning Bite, trained by James McArthur and ridden by Sam Thompson, also broke his maiden with his trial win in the second-fastest time of :19.468. The gelded son of Fishers Dash was second in his Ruidoso Futurity trial, qualifying for the futurity and then finishing sixth.
The third-fastest qualifier Wild Six may be the horse to beat in the finals. The Wes Giles-trained filly raised her record to four wins from four starts with the half-length win over Ruidoso Futurity third-place finisher Three Past Six. Wild Six was timed in :19.478, while Three Past Six is the fifth-fastest qualifier with a :19.555 time.
Wild Six won the Grade 1, $266,000 West Texas Futurity and was then entered in the Ruidoso Futurity trials, where she flipped in the gate and was scratched from the race.
The remaining qualifiers and their trainers eligible to return for the 400-yard finals on July 22 are: Possum Fust/Eddie Willis; Shy Ann Jess/Tony Sedillo; Brighton Beach/John Buchanan; Keep Themusicplaying/Paul Jones; Pragmatico/Weston Martin; Fear This Feature/Carl Draper. The Rainbow Futurity is the second race in the All American Triple Crown series.
Heartswideopen won the first leg, the $500,000 Ruidoso Futurity, but her trainer, Carl Draper, decided to by-pass the Rainbow Futurity and concentrate on the All American Futurity, the third leg of the series held on Labor Day.
The richest Rainbow Derby since champion Florentine won in 1987 will be headed by Valiant Hero (pictured as a yearling), who set the fastest qualifying time (:21.129) for the finals with a 1 1/2-length victory, his seventh win in 11 career starts.
Sired by First Down Dash and out of the leading producer Corona Chick, Valiant Hero was a $500,000 yearling purchase at the 2005 Ruidoso Select Yearling Sale. He started his current streak with a win in the $1 million Texas Classic Futurity at Lone Star Park on December 2 and won the Grade 2 Heritage Place Derby at Remington Park in his start prior to the Rainbow Derby trials.
Trained by Mike Joiner for the partnership of Brown, Hill and Bell, Valiant Hero has earned $571,000 and will be favored to win the $223,000 first-place check in the $447,230 Rainbow Derby finals.
“He broke well and I went after him left-handed to get him going,” said Valiant Hero’s jockey G.R. Carter Jr. “We just coasted home.”
Mr Jess Perry-sired The Crawfish, one of five qualifiers from the Paul Jones stable, finished second to Valiant Hero and has the second-fastest qualifying time of :21.223. But Separate Bet, coming off a track-record setting allowance victory, could be the horse to step forward and challenge Valiant Hero in the Rainbow Derby. The Paul Jones trainee, a finalist in last year’s $1.9 million All American Futurity won by 2 1/4 lengths in the third trial with a time of :21.228. Last month, Separate Bet set a new 400-yard record of :19.18 in an allowance race at Ruidoso Downs.
Jones’s other three finalists (fourth, fifth and sixth in times) are Ruidoso Derby runner-up La Lalique; Ruidoso Derby fourth-place finisher Twoforthedough; and Ruidoso Derby finalist Already Rude. The remaining qualifiers and their trainers are: Mr Gordon Shultz/Carl Draper; Royal Snow 468/Fred Danly; Voghts Gold/Heath Taylor; and Okey Dokey Fantasy/Sleepy Gilbreath.
The 10 fastest qualifiers from the three trials for the Rainbow Derby return for the 440-yard finals on July 21.