Page 97 - Speedhorse July 2018

"If you like your work, you're never working."
Rios purchased Kia Won as a yearling. The gelding, shown winning the 2013 New Mexico Spring Fling, earned Rios his first black-type victory.
A Blazin) from a rather nondescript track career where he’d won $2,591 over two years, including an eighth place finish in his New Mexico Classic Futurity trial and a seventh in his Shue Fly Stakes trial, to the 2013 Barrel Futurities of America World Championship as a 4 year old.
“I kind of have it made because my dad picks out all the colts that I start, and he has an eye for a really good horse,” Callie says with great pride in her dad. “He’s able to buy yearlings that don’t cost a lot, but that can run in the higher-ranked, $200,000 to half-million-dollar, races.”
A Natural Offshoot
“Living so close to Sunland Park and being involved in horses, we’d go out to the races and
the next thing we knew, we’d bought our first race yearling at Heritage Place in 2006,” Joe says. They qualified that yearling, Mr Eye Opener daughter Brown Eye Suze, to the West Texas Futurity in 2007. “She had a big heart and could really run,” Joe says, “and she qualified for futurities, but she never would come back and win the final. She ran last in the West Texas Futurity, but we had bought two other fillies that year that we kept and raced, too.
“We just don’t have the facilities to keep broodmares, so we just buy yearlings,” Joe adds. “We sold Brown Eye Suze when she was 5 years old and have been buying her babies back at the yearling sales since then.” From then on, along with buying race prospects for clients, they’ve kept two to three prospects each year to run themselves.
In 2013, their New Mexico-bred yearling purchase, 2-year-old Kia Won (Ketel Won– Major Kia, Major Rime) went to the winner’s circle for the New Mexico Spring Fling at Sunland Park, then took second in the Shue Fly Stakes the following year to earn the Rios family their first black-type achievement.
In 2017, they bought Brown Eye Suze’s son by Tres Seis, Brown Tres Seis. “We qualified him to the Ruidoso Futurity and he came back and ran 10th in the final,” Joe says. “He qualified for the Hobbs Futurity and then stumbled out of the gate in the final. But, he ran third the other day in the Ruidoso Derby and will run at the Rainbow Derby. If he doesn’t do well there, we’ll probably make a barrel horse out of him.”
This year, they have a star in another Brown Eye Suze foal, Suze Returns, by Mr Jess Perry son High Rate Of Return. Already a graded stakes winner, the 2-year-old filly has tallied $316,818 by winning three of four outs: She won her trial and finished the trials second-fastest overall, then won the final for the West Texas Futurity-G2. She also won her trial to the Ruidoso Futurity, finishing the $1.1 million Grade 1 final second by 1/2-length.
This year’s roster also includes 2 year olds Peyton James (Jesse James Jr – Ace Crystal Charm, Shazoom), who showed up third in the New Mexico Spring Futurity trial at Sunland Park and fifth in his trial for the Mountain Top Futurity at Ruidoso; and Fantastic Feature Jr (Fantastic Corona Jr – PT Feature Dash, Feature Mr Jess), who ran sixth in his trial for the West Texas Futurity at Sunland Park. “When we took Fantastic Feature Jr to our trainer in December, Juan (Gonzalez) thought he was the best he had, but in February he came up with white line disease,” Joe says. “We hope to have him ready for the Rainbow Futurity trials in July, but if not, we’ll wait and run him in the All American trials.”
He Loves the Sales
In the course of fulfilling orders for his loyal customers, Joe tries to attend all the sales, from Ruidoso and the All American Sale to Louisiana and Heritage Place, and sometimes Los Alamitos
as well. “If I fill up my customers’ requests for yearlings from New Mexico, Louisiana and Heritage Place, I may not go to California,” he says. “But, I try to go to all the sales.
“Some of my customers take the yearlings they buy to Mexico,” he adds. “The futurities there aren’t AQHA affiliated, but they organize futurities and they run a lot of the 2 year olds there. And, there are ranchers who come up here, who cross cattle from Mexico to the U.S., and they’ll buy a yearling or two from me and run them at those futurities in Mexico. If they run good there, some will bring them back to the U.S. and run them here.”
One of Joe’s Heritage Place purchases, Teller Cartel son Boi George out of the Feature Mr
Jess mare Rebas Feature, has earned $188,261
in two years racing, winning the West Texas Futurity-G2 and placing fifth in the Grade 1 Rainbow Futurity in 2014, then running in trials for the West Texas Derby, the Ruidoso Derby and the Rainbow Derby. “The boys I sold him to in Mexico took him there and saw that he could run, so they brought him back to the U.S. to run,” Joe says. “That was a pretty nice colt.”
Secrets To His Success
“I guess a lot of it is luck,” Joe says humbly of his good fortune in the racing industry. “And, I think our trainer, Juan Carlos Gonzalez and his dad, Juan Gonzalez, and their wives are a hard-working family and take good care of their racehorses. They want to win.”
What it boils down to is that the Rioses like to be around animals. Quoting the old adage, Joe says, “If you like your work, you’re never working.” Joe sees the need for the horses he buys, trains and sells to find their niche, and he does his best to see that - just as he does - each horse gets a chance to do what it loves.
Owners Joe Rios and Nahum Prieto in the winner’s circle with friends and family after Kia Won’s victory in the 2013 New Mexican Spring Fling.
SPEEDHORSE, July 2018 95