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RUIDOSO DOWNS
Rio Grande Senor TB Futurity (R)
Attila’s Storm
Forest Wildcat
Sweet Symmetry
Our Flying Angel
Abajo
Flying Humor
STORM LEADER
to $149,476, of which $75,784 came from his 5 3/4-length victory in the 5-furlong, $151,568 Mountain Top Thoroughbred Futurity (R) on June 26.
The 3-5 favorite in the field of nine, Storm Leader returned a $3.20 win mutuel. George Who, a 39-1 longshot, ran second to complete a $2 exacta payoff of $136.60.
Leave Them Behind ran third, 10 lengths behind Storm Leader. Valentino Who, Mr Rigger, Painted Smoke, Nostrangrtotherain, Rattila and Hennessy Looker RF completed the order of finish. Finalist Antonios Mark was listed by the Equibase chart as a trainer scratch.
George Who is a homebred son of the Pulpit stallion Abstraction racing for Sam E. Stevens and Sammy L. Stevens of Lamesa, Texas. The chestnut gelding banked the $27,557 runner-up share of the purse to bring his earnings to $29,862 from three outs.
A dark bay or brown son of Attila’s Storm owned by J & SM Inc. of Fort Stockton, Texas, Leave Them Behind pocketed the $16,534 third-place share of the purse. The gelding has won two of four starts -- including the third Rio Grande Senor Futurity trial -- and he has earned $26,765.
Storm Leader, a homebred son of Attila’s Storm, took over in the homestretch and rolled to a 9 1/2-length victory in the August 14, 5 1/2-furlong Rio Grande Senor Futurity (R) for New Mexico-bred 2-year-old colts and geldings at Ruidoso Downs.
Trained by Todd Fincher for owners Mike Abraham, Leslie Amestoy and Pierre J. Amestoy Jr., Storm Leader reached the wire in 1:04.85. Alfredo Juarez Jr. Rode the bay gelding, who earned the $68,892 winner’s share of the $137,784 purse.
Storm Leader was coming off of a 2 1/4-length victory in the first of three Rio Grande Senor Futurity trials on July 29. The gelding is one of 27 official black-type stakes winners from 12 crops sired by Attila’s Storm, a Kentucky-bred son of the Storm Cat stallion Forest Wildcat. Racing from 2004-07, Attila’s Storm earned $534,983 from 18 outs, and his five wins included the 2005 Fall Highweight Handicap and 2007 Toboggan Handicap (G3), both at Aqueduct.
Attila’s Storm has sired 198 winners and the earners of more than $16.8 million from 265 starters, including multiple stakes winners Bella Dona, Waltzing Attila, Stormin The Jewels and Thermal.
Storm Leader is also one of six winners from as many starters produced by Our Flying Angel, a homebred 13-year-old Abajo mare. Campaigned from 2011-13, Our Flying Angel earned $249,641 from 10 starts, and she won the 2011 Rio Grande Senorita Futurity (R) at Ruidoso Downs and New Mexico Cup Juvenile Fillies Stakes (R) at Zia Park.
Storm Leader’s second dam, the Kentucky- bred Distorted Humor mare Flying Humor, produced seven winners from as many starters, including Storm Warrior, a half- brother to Our Flying Angel who won the 2015 Rio Grande Senor Futurity (R), and Spartan Warrior, a winning half-brother to Our Flying Angel who ran second in the 2010 Rio Grande Senor Futurity (R).
Storm Leader traces back to his third dam, Flying Donna, an Ohio-bred daughter of the Affirmed stallion Sovereignty and a state-bred stakes winner at Beulah Park near Columbus in 1994. A 1990 foal, Flying Donna was a half- sister to Poplar Zar, the winner of the 1988 Shaker Heights Handicap (R) at Thistledown Racetrack near Cleveland.
Storm Leader was winning for the third time in four starts and increasing his bankroll
74 New Mexico Horse Breeder
Bailey Ivey, Ruidoso Downs