New track record holder Carters Cartel
Double Bar S Ranch’s Quarter runner Carters Cartel broke his paternal granddam Corona Chick’s long-standing 350-yard track record at Los Alamistos Race Course on June 23.
Trained by Jaime Gomez, who has now saddled 10 winners in the last 15 futurities at Los Alamitos, and ridden by Alejandro Luna, the son of Corona Cartel won the $1,130,000 Ed Burke Memorial by 3/4 lengths over Eye For Corona, while covering the distance in :17.17. The legendary Corona Chick had held the previous mark of :17.22, since October 16, 1991.
“Moments like this is what makes you get up in the morning,” said Gomez, who is one of only two trainers (Danny Cardoza is the other) to have won all three million-dollar futurities at Los Alamitos. “A horse like Carters Cartel makes it easy for everybody.”
Carters Cartel is now eligible to win the $1 million Los Alamitos Cash Bonanza, which is the track’s version of the Triple Crown. The Ed Burke is the first leg of this series of million-dollar races for 2-year-olds. The $1 million Golden State Futurity is next on November 2, followed by the Los Alamitos Two Million Futurity on December 14.
Double Bar S Ranch, owned by Dawn and Rhonda List, purchased the colt’s dam, 1993 champion 2-year-old filly Jumping Tac Flash, at auction for $210,000. In her time at Double Bar S Ranch, in addition to Carters Cartel, Jumping Tac Flash has produced Tac It Like A Man, winner of two Grade 1 futurities.
Carters Cartel earned $457,800 for the Ed Burke Memorial win to take his career earnings to $616,837. He has won four of five career starts.
Leading Spirit impressive in work
Leading Spirit, 2005 AQHA champion 2-year-old gelding, worked 350 yards from the gate in a time of :17.50 at Los Alamitos on Saturday, June 30.
“I’ve been around Los Alamitos a very long time and I’ve seen a lot of works,” said Paul Jones, the trainer of Leading Spirit. “I can’t remember another horse with a faster work from the gate at 350. He was working by himself and we didn’t push him either. That makes this work even more impressive.”
Ed Burgart, the track announcer and morning line maker at Los Alamitos since the early 1980s, was equally impressed with Leading Spirit’s morning performance. “That’s the fastest 350 gate work that I can remember here,” Burgart said.
Owned by Barry Thompson and Dan and Jolene Urschel, Leading Spirit has not raced since June 11, 2006. Jones said the ultimate goal for is to see the horse earn a berth in the $1 million 440-yard Champion of Champions at Los Alamitos, an invitational race that was won by his world champion sire Special Leader in 1991.
Leading Spirit became a star in Quarter Horse racing after winning three Grade 1 futurities and seven consecutive races at two. His Grade 1 victories came in the West Texas Futurity, Ruidoso Futurity and Rainbow Futurity, while earning $698,754. Thompson, a former chancellor of Texas A&M University, bred the gelding out of his homebred broodmare, Sandras Task.
“We’ve been taking our time with him,” said Jones, who has been conditioning Leading Spirit in California for several months. “He is coming off a surgery performed by Dr. Chris Ray in Texas. I’ve been very pleased with the way he’s been training and very impressed with the horse from day one.”
Jones has earned seven consecutive Quarter Horse titles at Los Alamitos and won the Champion of Champions with Cash For Kas in 2004 and The Down Side in 2002.