Racing


How Sweet It Is - Fire Fast Honey Dominates Kindergarten Futurity
Fire Fast Honey, under jockey Armando Cervantes, dominated the $297,900 Grade 2 Kindergarten Futurity Sunday night at Los Alamitos Race Course.

© Scott Martinez
How Sweet It Is - Fire Fast Honey Dominates Kindergarten Futurity

LOS ALAMITOS, CA—MAY 16, 2021—Dennis Jensen and Randy Young enjoyed their biggest win as Quarter Horse owners after their Fire Fast Honey dominated the running of the Grade 2, $297,700 Robert Adair Kindergarten Futurity on the way to an impressive two length victory on Sunday at Los Alamitos.

Flying from post number eight at 14-1 odds, Fire Fast Honey was on the lead right from the start and there was no catching her from there. She was on the clear about 100 yards into the race and shortly after she had unsurmountable daylight advantage over her rivals

With jockey Armando Cervantes aboard for trainer Monty Arrossa, the daughter of Walk Thru Fire out of the Corona Cartel filly Coronas Fast Honey is the eighth filly since 2011 to win the Kindergarten final, her winning time of :15.37 the fastest in this race since Wicked Affair covered the 300 yards in :15.36 in 2018. Dutch Masters III's Southern Beduino was second with Jesus Avila and Jesus Cuevas' Beduino Surprise running third.

Winning owners Randy Young and Dennis Jensen accept the Robert Adair Kindergarten Futurity stakes trophy on Sunday night. © Scott Martinez
"This is it," Jensen said when asked about their biggest Quarter Horse win. "She blew out of there and left them. I did not expect it like that. They probably heard us clear back in Rooselvelt, Utah."

Jensen is from Rooselvelt, which is a city in Duchesne County in Utah. Young is from Erda, Utah, which is located about 135 miles from Rooselvelt. The two have campaigned horses together at Los Alamitos since 2016, but Jensen has been in racing his entire life.

"I've been doing this since my dad used to own horses when I was a kid," Jensen said. "I've been doing this all of my life."

"We're buddies," Young added. "I used to rodeo with his cousin, and we started racing horses. I met Dennis and we became good friends. We did some business deals. I build houses and Dennis had a big oil field construction company in Rooselvelt and he helped me finance my homes. It worked out pretty good."

Winning jockey Armando Cervantes and trainer Monty Arrossa celebrate after their Robert Adair Kindergarten Futurity win. © Scott Martinez
As part of a three-person partnership, Jensen and Young qualified to the 2016 Ed Burke Million Futurity with a full brother to Fire Fast Honey named Fire Fast Corona. Wild West Futurity finalist Dr Stellar was another runner that they partnered on during their early years racing at Los Alamitos.

"We always buy horses together," Young added. "We look at them and agree upon them. Monty always trains for us. We wouldn't do it without him. We saw Fire Fast Honey at the (Ruidoso Yearling Sale) and she looked as good as Fire Fast Corona."

Thirty-two thousand dollars later and Jensen and Young had their futurity hopeful for Los Alamitos.

"This couldn't happen to better guys," Arrossa said. "This is the heart and soul of Quarter Horse racing right here. These guys go to the sales every year. They support the sales, support our industry, buy babies every year. I appreciate that they've stuck with me. We've had our ups and downs. We had this horse's full brother a few years ago and he qualified to the Ed Burke. They called me from the Ruidoso Sale and told me they had bought this filly. I felt good about her after the trials. I was glad just to qualify. She got bumped around, didn't leave very good. We've taken her back to the gates the last couple of weeks and she's just been on it. She needed the experience. This filly, she's classy."

Fire Fast Honey, under jockey Armando Cervantes, returns after winning the Grade 2 Robert Adair Kindergarten Futurity Sunday night. © Scott Martinez
Fire Fast Honey is classy indeed. Her second dam is the Mr Jess Perry mare First Prize Honey, who is out of First Down Dash's full-sister First Prize Dash. First Prize Honey is a sister to Grade 1 Heritage Place Futurity winner First Carolina and Grade 1 Remington Park Futurity winners First Prize Robin and First Prize Leesa.

Bred by Silver Racing Farm LLC, the classy Fire Fast Honey also helped Arrossa reach one of his most wanted accomplishments in racing.

"This race has been on my bucket list for quite some time," the trainer said. "I've wanted to win the Kindergarten since I've come here. It's the first futurity of the year at Los Alamitos and, I don't know, but my whole life watching Los Alamitos from Idaho I would see all the great horses and horsemen that have won this race, it's special. Being named after the great Bobby Adair, it's just pretty special.

"When I came down here, I wanted to win the Champion of Champions and the Kindergarten. I got the Champion of Champions (in 2016) and thanks to these guys, we got together and won the Kindergarten. I got to meet Bobby's daughter, Julie Adair, tonight. It's just a pretty magical night for us."

The winning connections of Fire Fast Honey in the Los Alamitos Race Course winner's circle. © Scott Martinez
Picking up her first career win in three career starts, Fire Fast Honey earned $125,118 to take her career earnings to $126,678.

"She stood great at the gates," the winning rider, Armando Cervantes added. "As soon as they popped it, she flew out of there. She left running. I knew that if she came back decent and could run a little bit more that we would have a good chance. She proved it. She's something else. You're riding and you don't know what could come. You're just trying to do the best hanging in there, but I knew after we broke out of the gates that we had them."

Arrossa said that next for Fire Fast Honey will be the trials to the Governor's Cup Futurity in mid-July.

Fire Fast Honey, under jockey Armando Cervantes, winning the Robert Adair Kindergarten Futurity by two-lengths Sunday night.. © Scott Martinez
"We'll see how she comes back tomorrow," he said. "We'll give her some time."

For Jensen and Young, they are looking forward to more fun times in Quarter Horse racing.

"We have (Fire Fast Honey) and have a Corona Cartel filly from the Look Her Over family that Monty has at home right now," Young said. "I have one in Utah that's running. She just qualified to (the Beehive) futurity yesterday at Laurel Brown in Utah. Her name is Jess Izzy. We're on a good start."

"We got a win picture yesterday and another one today," Jensen said.

Ridden by Erasmo Gasca for trainer Jaime Gomez, Southern Best earned $50,643 for her runner-up effort for owner/breeder Dutch Masters III. The gelding by leading second-crop sire Docs Best Card finished strongly to earn second place and has now finished in the top three in all four of her career starts.

A homebred for owners Jesus Avila and Jesus Cuevas, Beduino Surprise ran a solid race from start to finish to cross the wire third. The gelding by Turbulent Times earned $35,748. Ruben Lozano piloted him for trainer Valentin Zamudio.

The top three were followed by Docs Fastlane, Val Frida, La Blue Amore, Midnite Fling, FG Jess Seis and Resurrection Man.

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For more info, please contact larace@losalamitos.com. Follow us on Twitter or Instagram at @losalracing or visit us online at www.losalamitos.com.