Mayor Humdinger Is Excellent Late To Win The Sgt Pepper Feature Handicap

Overcoming a difficult start, Mike Casselman’s homebred Mayor Humdinger demonstrated his class as the heavy 1-5 favorite, surging late to win the $30,000 Sgt Pepper Feature Handicap on Saturday night at Los Alamitos.

Ridden by Martin Arriaga, the 3-year-old gelding by Mpshinning bumped at the break and found himself sitting fourth through the opening call. However, Mayor Humdinger hit his stride midway down the lane, unleashing a powerful finish to kick past his rivals and win handily by half a length in a final time of :17.676 for the 350 yards. Casselman also trains and owns the winner of the 2025 Governor’s Cup Futurity.

"We stood him and he stands good and we thought we had done our homework with him," Casselman said. "We're going to have to go back and work because he can't be getting left like that with better horses. He handled it really good after he got away."

Casselman had also nominated Mayor Humdinger to face older horses in the Grade 1 Go Man Go Handicap but ultimately opted to keep the talented sophomore in 3-year-old company for this assignment.

"We were pretty close (to running him), but I have another horse for that race (Astronomical 123), and we sold another one that's going to be in there as well (Winners Share)," Casselman explained. "I just thought this would be a better spot one more time. We'll start trying the other horses. We got a derby to run in December."

Casselman noted that Mayor Humdinger could make additional starts before pointing toward the Grade 2 Southern California Derby trials in December. The victory marked the gelding’s fifth win in eight career starts and boosted his bankroll to $165,715 with the $16,500 winner's share. The win also propelled Arriaga back into the lead of the jockey standings with 33 victories on the meet, holding a single-win edge over Justine Klaiber.

Behind the winner, Santos Montemayor and Omar Torres’s SM My Valentine, trained by Adan Farias and ridden by Eduardo Nicasio, finished in a dead-heat for second alongside the Schvaneveldt Sisters and Mark Smith’s Slatedtoshine, who is trained by Roman Figueroa and ridden by Gabriel Lara. Both runners completed the distance in :17.740 to earn $5,250 each.

Carla Akers and Randy D. Perkins’ Paint Horse gelding Turnpike Jammer ran a solid fourth under Henry Reynoso Lopez. Shane Giles’ SG Jacob Jay, winner of the James Smith Memorial, finished fifth. Angela Aquino’s Paint Horse runner Chiseled N Chrome completed the order of finish. Accuzation was scratched earlier in the day.

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