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RUIDOSO DOWNS
Mountain Top QH Derby (R)
Chicks Regard
Chicks Beduino
First Regard
Riverside Flash
First Moonflash
Riverside Eye Opener
RIVER FLASH
Classy Moon finished third, 1 3/4 lengths behind River Flash. Day Thuggin, Big Crush BB, fastest qualifier Legende, Run Time, LMG First Call, Flashin The Ivory and Hunky McGoo completed the order of finish.
The ninth-fastest qualifier, runner-up Daddies Wish earned $29,313 to bring
is bankroll to $127,980 from 15 races for owners Julie A. Schoenhofer and Maricela Vasquez, who purchased the graded stakes placed Big Daddy Cartel filly for $32,000 at the 2020 Ruidoso Select Yearling Sale.
Classy Moon is a homebred son of
2009 AQHA champion aged stallion First Moonflash campaigned by Bob and Sissie McClure. The bay gelding has won two of 11 outs and has banked $58,170, and his 2-year- old record included a second-place finish,
one length behind winner Muy Peligrosito, in the 440-yard, $100,000 Southwest Juvenile Championship Stakes (G2) at Zia Park.
The Mountain Top Derby was inaugurated last year at Ruidoso Downs, when the Estate of William and Mary Robertson’s homebred filly Icy Morning Breeze earned the winner’s share of a $90,636 purse.
Breaking sharply from post 10, River Flash sprinted to a wire-to-wire victory in the June 18, $162,848 Mountain Top Derby (R) for New Mexico-bred 3-year-olds at Ruidoso Downs.
River Flash covered 350 yards in :17.489 while racing on a muddy track against a reported 11-mph head wind, and his winning margin was a clear 1 1/2 lengths from Daddies Wish. Emilio Tapia rode the gray son of the Chicks Beduino stallion Chicks Regard for owners Robert M. Driggers and Ben Lee Ivey and trainer Wes Giles.
”Once he got going, he had another gear,” said Tapia. “This time he was more calm in the gate than before, and he showed that he wants 440 yards later.”
River Flash was bred by Ivey Cattle Co. The fifth-fastest qualifier, he was coming off of a half-length victory in one of six Mountain Top Derby trials on June 4. The gelding’s sire, Chicks Regard, earned $52,783 from 13 starts while racing in California and New Mexico from 2001- 03, and his six wins included the 2003 Head Pin Handicap at the Sonoma County Fair in Santa Rosa, California, in his final career race.
Chicks Regard has sired the earners of more than $8.3 from 15 crops, including
graded stakes winners Regard With Respect, You N How Many More and A Streak Regard. Now 23, the stallion is owned by K. Humberto Lopez Gaxiola and he stands for a $2,800 fee at Robert and Del Rae Driggers’ Bar Y Equine at Berino, New Mexico.
River Flash is out of Riverside Flash, a homebred winning daughter of 2009 AQHA champion aged stallion First Moonflash and a finalist in the 2017 Zia (RG1) and New Mexico Cup (RG2) futurities. His second dam, the homebred winning Mr Eye Opener mare Riverside Eye Opener, ran second in the 2004 La Mariposa Handicap (G3) at Albuquerque Downs.
Campaigned exclusively in New Mexico, River Flash has won five of nine races
-- including two of three at the 350-yard distance -- and the $68,396 winner’s share
of the Mountain Top Derby purse pushed his bankroll to $180,980, of which $146,260 has been pocketed from six races this season. His three lifetime stakes victories include the April 24, $100,000 New Mexico Breeders’ Stakes (RG3) at SunRay Park, and last year’s 400-yard, $50,000 New Mexico State Fair Juvenile Stakes (R) at Albuquerque Downs.
68 New Mexico Horse Breeder
Bailey Ivey, Ruidoso Downs