Here Comes Candy is expected to make her next start in Saturday's Q-Racing Video Distaff Challenge Championship at Lone Star Park.

© Richard Chamberlain

By Richard Chamberlain

GRAND PRARIE, TX–OCTOBER 17, 203–Zack Stinebaugh will saddle Here Comes Candy in the $100,000-estimated Q-Racing Video Distaff Challenge Championship (G1) on Saturday night.

Sound familiar? The 24-year-old horseman is looking for a fast start in the race, just as he has had a fast start on his own in his second year as a trainer. Zack learned his trade cleaning stalls, grooming horses and eventually as the assistant trainer to his Dad, well-known conditioner John Stinebaugh.

"My Dad has had the complete influence on me, teaching me how to do everything," Zack says. "I started on my own last year in Louisiana and didn't get a full year. This year will be my first full year, and I've had some pretty good luck so far. But of course, the reason I wanted to get into training was because of my Dad. He showed me how to do it."

The young trainer has a really good shot at his first Grade 1 win this Saturday night.

A 4-year-old sorrel mare by Jess Good Candy, Here Comes Candy races for Rachuan Suarez MVZ of Cordoba, Veracruz, Mexico. Bred by PV Quarter Horse Farms LLC of Ratler City, Oklahoma, the mare is one of two winners from three starters out of the graded stakes-winning Red Storm Cat mare Candy Cartels Cat, who earned $162,294 on the track and has produced the earners of more than $147,000, including Here Comes Candy's stakes-placed full sister Volcoms Hot Candy ($21,538).

Champion and All American Futurity (G1) winner Jess Good Candy ($2,014,703) has sired four champions, 10 other stakes winners and the earners of more than $7.2 million, including champion Grade 1 winner Jess Savin Candy ($1,061,560). Bred by Carl Pevehouse and PV Quarter Horse Farms, the 10-year-old stallion stands at Lazy E Ranch at Guthrie, Oklahoma.

Jess Good Candy's daughter comes into the Distaff Challenge off a seventh-place finish in the September 2 Selma Stakes at Retama Park, that following a second in the August 19 Delta Downs Distaff Challenge. The winner of the 2021 Ruidoso Downs Juvenile Challenge (G3) and fourth-place finisher in the AQHA Juvenile Challenge Championship (G2) at Albuquerque, Here Comes Candy has earned $120,947 while compiling a career record of 15 – 5 (1) – 1 (1) – 0.

"Here Comes Candy is really good," Zack says. "She had a lot of success as a 2-year-old, running with my Dad in Ruidoso. She ended up winning the Challenge Juvenile there and then went to Albuquerque and ran pretty good in the Challenge finals there. Then I took her to Louisiana and she ran really good. Look at her form and you'll see the more time you give her off between races, the better she does. She does really well as she's gotten a little older, so I think she'll run really well in the final Saturday night.

"I took her to gallop last week and one of my riders described her, said he wished that every single horse we have went like she does," Zack continues. "She's super smooth, really smart, she's pretty much the best for a mare. The owners are really lucky – she's going to be great to breed. She's the real deal, really nice."

Zack's father thinks his son might be the real deal, also.

"Zack is really interested in the horse business," John says. "He likes training and running horses, going to the sales and buying horses for people. He's got a really good eye for it, so he started his own little stable and he had a really good year last year – was first, second and third in the Evangeline Derby and qualified one for the Futurity. He owns horses, too, so he's had a good go and it's worked out really good so far."

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