Page 19 - 2020 Stallion Register

THE NEWS
Albuquerque Downs Honors 2019 Meet Champions
The track ended its 56-day Thoroughbred and Quarter Horse racing season on Sept. 22.
Albuquerque Downs ended its 56-day Thor- oughbred and Quarter Horse race meet with a stakes-filled program on Sunday, Sept. 22.
The Downs’ closing-day program featured six stakes, five for Quarter Horses and one for Thor- oughbreds, and purses totaling $1,575,114. Total wagering handle on closing day reached $368,246, an increase of 8 percent over the $341,574 bet on closing day of the 2018 season. This year’s closing- day off-track handle of $252,339 represented a 20% increase over the $210,770 wagered off-track on closing day of the 2018 season.
The Downs’ signature Quarter Horse race, the 440-yard, $300,000 Albuquerque Fall Championship (G1) on closing day, alone gener- ated a handle of $84,572 in the win, place, show, exacta, trifecta, and superfecta pools, an increase of 52% over the $55,520 wagered in those pools on the 2018 Albuquerque Fall Championship.
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Once again, Justin Evans topped The
Downs’ Thoroughbred trainer standings with 43 wins from 114 starters, 23 more than runner- up Dick Cappelucci, who saddled the winners
of 20 races from 99 starters. Evans far surpassed his total number of wins from 2018, when he led the track’s Thoroughbred trainer standings with 20 wins from 94 starters.
Evans also led all Downs’ Thoroughbred trainers in starter earnings at $628,161.
Luis Negron, a newcomer to the New Mexico jockey colony, was The Downs’ leading Thoroughbred jockey with 48 wins from 189 mounts, 11 more than runner-up and 2018 leading Thoroughbred rider Alfredo Juarez
Jr., who rode the winners of 37 races from 165 mounts. However, Juarez, who also reached the
3,000-win milestone early in the meet, was the track’s leading Thoroughbred jockey in mount earnings at $753,151.
Tom and Sandy McKenna’s Judge Lanier Racing once again topped all Albuquerque Downs Thoroughbred owners with 14 winners from 126 starters, three more winners than its 2018 leading total of 11 wins. Vanessa Evans finished second in the owner standings with six winners from 11 starters. Judge Lanier Racing also topped the track’s Thoroughbred owner standings with purse earnings of $238,222.
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On the Quarter Horse side, Edgar Mar-
tinez was The Downs’ leading jockey with 28 wins from 139 mounts, four more than runner-up and defending champion Alonso Rivera, who won 24 races from 116 mounts. Martinez topped all Quarter Horse riders in mount earnings with $445,342.
Arnoldo Carrillo and Jesus Carrete topped all Albuquerque Downs Quarter Horse trainers with 18 wins each. Carrillo accomplished his feat from 62 starters, while Carrete had 79 starters. Mike Joiner, who won two stakes on closing day, was The Downs’ leading Quarter Horse trainer in starter earnings with $326,161.
Norberto Morales-Perez was Albuquerque Downs’ leading Quarter Horse owner with seven wins from 36 starters, one more than runners-up Blas Duran Castillo and Pedro Carrillo. Mac and Janis Murray’s MJ Farms
of Veguita, New Mexico, topped all Quarter Horse owners in purse earnings at $204,492, most of which was banked from their home- bred Donelli’s victory in the meet’s richest race, the 400-yard, $386,196 New Mexico State Fair Quarter Horse Futurity (RG3) on closing day.
Albuquerque Downs’ noteworthy equine performances were led by Kelly Perez’s Mi
Amor Secreto and L & N Racing LLC’s Lookin At Lee. A homebred 4-year-old son of The Louisiana Cartel and a 13-1 longshot, Mi Amor Secreto won The Downs’ signature Quarter Horse race, the 440-yard, $300,000 Albuquer- que Fall Championship (G1) on closing day. Jose Alvarez rode the Texas-bred gelding for trainer Marcos Carrizales.
This year’s Fall Championship was contested as a Grade 1 stakes for the second time in its five-year history, and it offered its winner a berth in this year’s 440-yard, $350,000 Cham- pionship at Sunland Park (G1).
Lookin At Lee won the track’s richest Thor- oughbred race, the 1 1/8-mile, $200,000 Downs at Albuquerque Handicap on August 3. Alfredo Juarez Jr. rode the 5-year-old son of Lookin At Lucky and 2017 Kentucky Derby (G1) runner- up for Hall of Fame trainer Steve Asmussen.
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The Downs will be dark for live racing until
Saturday, Oct. 26, when the track will host the 27th AQHA Bank of America Challenge Cham- pionships, which bring together the best racing Quarter Horses from every region in the western hemisphere, including Canada, Mexico and South America. A total of $950,000 in purses will be paid that night, which will mark the first time since 1993 that the event will take place in New Mexico.
The Downs’ 2020 season will run 44 days, from July 17-Sept. 20, and it will include 17 days of live racing during the New Mexico State Fair. The track will also host the 2020 Chal- lenge Championships at a date to be determined later, marking the first time in the Challenge Championships’ history that the same track will host the event two consecutive years.
New Mexico Racing Legend Peppers Pride Dies
Peppers Pride, a daughter of Desert God bred and raced by Joe Allen of Abilene, Texas, died on Sept. 19 due to complications from laminitis. She was 16.
Trained throughout her racing career by Joel Marr and campaigned exclusively in New Mex-
ico, Peppers Pride won all 19 of her starts and earned $1,066,085. She won 14 stakes, including the New Mexico Cup Filly & Mare Champion- ship (R) -- a race that has been renamed the Peppers Pride New Mexico Cup Filly & Mare Championship - in 2007 and 2008.
“She was an all-time great in New Mexico,” said Eric Alwan, director of public- ity at Sunland Park and track announcer
at Albuquerque Downs and SunRay Park. “She was a real warrior with a late kick. I will always remember calling her 16th win at Sunland Park.”
Peppers Pride won New Mexico Horse Breeders’ Association Champion 2-Year-Old Filly honors in 2005. She was the NMHBA
Champion 3-Year-Old Filly in 2006 and Cham- pion Older Mare in 2007 and 2008.
Peppers Pride was foaled on March 24, 2003. Her top earning year was 2007, when she banked $364,560 from seven races.
“I was never supposed to own a horse like this,” Allen told the BloodHorse after Peppers Pride won her 17th consecutive race. “It’s kind of unreal, but is sure has been a lot of fun.
No U.S.-based horse who retired undefeated has won more races than Peppers Pride. Since becoming a broodmare, she foaled three winners from four starters. She has produced an un- raced yearling, American Pepper (by American Pharoah) and an unnamed 2019 foal by Califor- nia Chrome.
WINTER 2019 17
Coady Photography