Preview Racing


Bh Lisas Boy Heads Trials On Sunday To Grade 1 Brad Mckinzie Los Alamitos Winter Championship
BH Lisas Boy will head a pair of trials to the Grade 1, $157,250 Brad McKinzie Los Alamitos Winter Championship on Sunday night.

© Scott Martinez
Bh Lisas Boy Heads Trials On Sunday To Grade 1 Brad Mckinzie Los Alamitos Winter Championship

LOS ALAMITOS, CA—JANUARY 14, 2018— Led by Bill Hoburg’s multiple Grade 1 winner BH Lisas Boy, a total of 16 older horses will be in action in a pair of trials to the Grade 1, $157,250 Brad McKinzie Los Alamitos Winter Championship on Sunday night.

The Brad McKinzie is named in honor of the longtime Los Alamitos Race Course executive who passed away last summer.

The trials will be contested as races seven and eight, which are the final two races on the Sunday card. First post is 5:15 p.m.

Bred, owned and trained by Bill Hoburg, BH Lisas Boy is the defending winner of this race. He won the 2017 edition of this race by a half-length following a superb trial victory by 1 1/2 lengths. It would be the beginning of a strong season for the son of Mighty Invictus, as he would go on to win six of seven starts on the year.

His only loss came in his most recent start when finishing fifth in the Grade 1 Champion of Champions on December 16. Cesar De Alba will ride BH Lisas Boy, who will now make his third start after coming back from surgery. He’ll start from the outside post number nine in the first of two trials.

Jim Walker’s Zoomin For Spuds, the winner of the 2016 Champion of Champions and the third place finisher in last year’s Champion of Champions, will also be part of the opening trial. Conditioned by Monty Arrossa, Zoomin For Spuds won only one race last year, but he hit the board in six of seven starts while facing top competition the entire year.

If his Champion of Champions effort last month is an indication, he could be coming back to the form that saw him become an AQHA champion 3-year-old gelding in 2016. Jesus Rios Ayala will get the call from post number seven.

Darling Farms, named the 2017 AQHA champion owner earlier this week, and Jaime Gomez will send out the multiple major stakes finalist LD Is Back in this heat.

The Walk Thru Fire gelding was the fastest qualifier to the Grade 1 Los Alamitos Super Derby last year, but a troubled start eliminated him from contention early in that race.

This trial will also feature the return of Fawna Knight’s Worth Doing, who missed the entire 2017 season and has not raced since winning the Los Alamitos Two Million Futurity in 2016, and Rancho El Cabresto’s Mr Apollitical Dash, the winner of the Grade 2 Southern California Derby on December 15.

The second trial will be headed by Jesus Daniel Padilla’s Da One Two Special and Ed Allred’s millionaire He Looks Hot. The talented geldings both competed in the Champion of Champions last year.

Urschel 3-D Ranch LLC’s multiple stakes winner Rite Regal, who ran in the 2016 Champion of Champions, will also compete in this heat, as will Mark and Peggy Brown’s outstanding runner Kissed By An Eagle, the runner-up in the Southern California Derby and third place finisher in the Super Derby last year.

The horses with the 10 fastest times will be back for the Brad McKinzie final on Sunday, February 11.

Courtesy of www.losalamitos.com.