The Grade 1 newly named Jame Dreyer Charger Bar Handicap will run on Sunday,January 4 at Los Alamitos.

© Los Alamitos

By Orlando Gutierrez

LOS ALAMITOS, CA—DECEMBER 24, 2025–The Grade 1 Charger Bar Handicap, which has been run at Los Alamitos since 2001, will now be known as the James Dreyer Charger Bar Handicap starting with the 2026 running on Sunday, January 4.

James Dreyer, who piloted the legendary mare Charger Bar to victory in the 1973 Champion of Champions winning jockey, passed way on August 11 after an illness. He was 82. Dreyer won 535 Quarter Horse races and 46 stakes races at Los Alamitos during his career.

Many of those victories came aboard Ed Allred and Kenneth Wright’s AQHA Hall of Famer and World Champion Charger Bar. Following the conclusion of his riding career, Dreyer was a track official and worked in the Los Alamitos racing office for 20 years. He then served as a racing steward in California for close to 25 years. 

Aboard Charger Bar, Dreyer achieved many of his biggest wins. During the 1971 season, Dreyer and Charger Bar teamed up to win the Los Alamitos Derby, Go Man Go Handicap, and Robert Boniface Los Alamitos Championship.

In the years that followed Dreyer and the Wayne Charlton-trained Charger Bar teamed up to win the 1972 Vessels Maturity, then the 1973 Champion of Champions before repeating as winners of the Go Man Go in 1974.

"She was like driving a Rolls Royce," Dreyer once said of Charger Bar. "She just took care of her business and the rest of the time she wanted to be left alone. She would put on her game face as soon as she stepped on the track.”

To be held at 400 yards, the James Dreyer Charger Bar is for mares 4-year-olds and up. Since its inaugural running, this race has been won by some of the greatest mares in Quarter Horse racing. Its first winner was Lucas Racing’s Corona Kool, who earned nearly $1.3 million in her multiple Grade 1 stakes winning career.

Dennie and Kris Hill’s AB What A Runner, the 2002 All American Futurity winner, won the 2004 running. Benny Rosset’s Stylish Jess BR, Ed Allred’s Quirky, and Gentry Farms’ Kiss Thru Fire are the only two-time winners of the James Dreyer Charger Bar. Parsons Family Limited Partnership’s Rockin With Energy won the 2025 running of this race.

Entries for the 2026 James Dreyer Charger Bar Handicap program will be taken on Tuesday, December 30. For more information, please

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