In one of the greatest Quarter Horse performances ever seen at Los Alamitos Racecourse, 2006 two-year-old champion and champion filly Blues Girl Too beat runner-up Little Bit Of Baja by 1 1/4 lengths, on the way to a record of :21.132 seconds, in the 440-yard Champion of Champions, Saturday, December 15. The great Dash For Cash set the previous record in the first of his two Champion of Champions wins with a time of :21.17, on December 19, 1976. Champion FDD Dynasty, the 5-2 favorite in the race, finished third.
Trained by Joe Bassett and ridden by Saul Ramirez at odds of 7-1, Blues Girl Too earned $500,000 with her Champion of Champions win to became the richest female in Quarter Horse racing history and only the second sprinter to go over the $2 million mark in career earnings. With $2,032,328, she is now $93,981 shy of equaling the all-time earnings record of $2,126,309 held by two-times world champion and three-times Champion of Champions winner Refrigerator.
“We knew that she could do this, but we’re still in shock after this performance,” said Russell Stooks of Lucky Seven Ranch, Blues Girl Too’s owner. “We gave her a good rest after she ran fourth (to Little Bit Of Baja) in the Los Alamitos Super Derby. She had two weeks where she didn’t do a thing. She came into this race fresh and she ran the race of her life.”
After joining Ocean Runaway as the only horses to win both the Los Alamitos Two Million Futurity (in 2006) and the Champion of Champions, Blues Girl Too has earned her place among Quarter racing’s greatest stars. In Saturday’s winner’s circle, some were calling her the greatest filly of all-time.
“That’s one of the greatest things that people have told us tonight,” said Stooks. “I’ve had some old-timers, people that have been around this game a long time, tell me that she’s the best they’ve ever seen. After this race I had people tell me that she’s the greatest racehorse ever.”
Because of her small stature, some handicappers thought the 440-yard distance would prove to be too taxing for Blues Girl Too. “We were a little nervous because she had never run 440 yards before,” Stooks said. “But we knew after she won the (400-yard) Mildred Vessels Memorial Handicap (on September 21), if she repeated that performance, the extra forty yards wouldn’t bother her.”
“We’re going to give her time off,” said Bassett, who at the age of 24 is the youngest trainer ever to win the Champion of Champions. “We’ll probably do a little surgery in a couple of weeks, just like we did after she won the Los Al Two Million last year. If we decide to bring her back, maybe we’ll shoot for the Millie Vessels Memorial Handicap next year. That would give me plenty of time to get her ready.
“The chance to break Refrigerator’s record may never happen again for us. I know that Blues Girl Too would run all day, if she could. But we will evaluate the situation and do what’s best for her.”
In addition to the Champion of Champions and Millie Vessels Handicap, Blues Girl Too also won the Grade 1 Golden State Derby on September 21. Her career record now stands at eight wins and four second-place finishes from 13 starts.
This past spring, Blues Girl Too who was bred to Mr Jess Perry, A Regal Choice and Ocean Runaway. In 2008, she will be bred to First Down Dash and FDD Dynasty. Her dam, 11-year old Run The Dash, by Sixarun out of a Dash For Cash daughter, also produced The Blues Man, by This Snow Is Royal, winner of $187,841.