Dont Let Down, third on Labor Day in the $2 million All American Quarter Horse Futurity at Ruidoso Downs, powered home as the odds-on favorite to beat First Freeze by a half-length in the $426,375 Grade 1 Dash For Cash Futurity, at Lone Star Park in Grand Prairie, Texas, on October 28.
Ridden by Juan Vazquez, Dont Let Down ran 400 yards in :19.713. The win, worth $170,550, was the fifth in nine starts for the gelded son of Stoli, who is trained by John Buchanan for Bobby Cox, Peaster, TX.
“After I bought (the stallion) Invisible Injun, I had to have some of his offspring to run so I bought a couple in the All American,” said Cox, who is the chairman of Schlotsky’s restaurants. “His mother happened to be one of them. She ran pretty well for us and this was her first baby. The ‘Don’t Let Down’ came from (the saying) ‘When the going gets tough, the tough get going.’ It’s been a tough road here – I’ve been trying to win this thing for 20 years. So it’s a great win.”
“He’s just a natural 400 to 440-yard horse,” said Buchanan of Dont Let Down, whose earnings now stand at $384,757. “He can run the other distances, but it’s just easier for him to run this. He handled Ruidoso, but he likes Texas better. He likes more oxygen.”
In June, Dont Let Down placed third in the Grade 1 Heritage Place Futurity at Remington Park.
“In the Heritage Place, he stumbled a little bit, but came back and ran third,” noted Vazquez. “He had a good chance to win the All American, but he had a little trouble. He’s a hell of a baby with so much talent and I think he deserved to win a Grade 1.”
This was the second Dash For Cash Futurity for Buchanan and Vazquez, who won the 2000 renewal with Joshua Harner’s Pivotal Decision.
Hall of Fame trainer Jack Brooks claimed his fourth Dash For Cash Derby win, when Ima Ramblin Girl, under J.R. Carter, prevailed by a half-length over Adrians Jolla. The 440-yard victory was worth $77,320. The First Down Dash daughter, bred and owned by Walter and Pat Fletcher of Lakin, KS, is half-sister to Heza Ramblin Man, earner of $750,987, and two-time winner of the Grade 1 Los Alamitos Invitational Championship.
Walter Fletcher is current president of the American Quarter Horse Association. He and Pat have raised the race earners of nearly $2 million.
Both Dont Let Down and Ima Ramblin Girl were the fastest qualifiers for their respective division trials.
Brooks and Carter also teamed to win the $47,375 Dash For Cash Juvenile Stakes with the two-year-old gelding Valiant Hero, by First Down Dash.