Page 163 - July 2022

Pick Your Pour’s winning connections include owners Orlando Granillo and Azucena & Rene Mendoza, trainer James Gonzales II and jockey Mario Delgado.
front, but I wasn’t too sure. I watched the race and as soon as I saw that they stood up, I called my wife, Antoinette. She answered and said, ‘Come take a picture.’ So I said, ‘Yeah,’ and I hung up the phone and I rode up there to the winner’s circle.”
Gonzales knows plenty about jockeys because he was one from 1992-2008. He has transitioned well to training, with
about 58 head in his barn. Antoinette does the bookkeeping, and their five sons help out. James III is a trainer himself with about 14 head, and Sebastian works at Reliance Ranches. The others pitch in after school.
James II has known co-owner Orlando Granillo for some time. Granillo told the trainer that he wanted to buy a couple of yearlings and send them to James to train. Granillo and Rene Mendoza purchased Pick Your Pour from breeder MJ Farms at the 2021 Ruidoso Select Yearling Sale for $25,000. They own him with Mendoza’s sister, Azucena. MJ Farms bred Pick Your
Pour in New Mexico out of their winning homebred mare Tangled Vines.
Gonzales has liked Pick Your Pour from the beginning. The youngster never gave his team any trouble all through breaking and early training. Gonzales didn’t start the gelding until the Mountain Top Futurity trials, where he won his trial, qualifying as the seventh fastest.
“We were confident in this horse’s ability,” said Delgado, who also rode him in the trial. “Even when we were breaking this horse back in El Paso, we thought the horse showed talent.”
Gonzales said that he has several New Mexico-breds in his barn, and some of them he felt needed a race before the Mountain Top trials.
“This horse has always been consistent in his workouts in the morning,” said Gonzales. “He had never done anything wrong, so I felt comfortable going into the trials with him without a start. Some of the other ones that needed experience and a race before, so
I did that. But he’s a very good horse, very professional. He doesn’t give you trouble in the stall, in the barn, galloping—nothing.” Pick Your Pour came out of the Futurity in excellent shape, said Gonzales, who has him paid into the Zia Futurity-RG1.
Trey Wood trained second-place finisher Reef Ridge (Woodbridge-Fast Copy Miss) and third-place finisher Ricanelo (Big Daddy Cartel-Total Miracle), both for owners E. Gene and Tod Bradley. Tanner Thedford piloted Reef Ridge, who also ran second in the Oklahoma Juvenile Stakes, and Raul Ramirez Jr. rode Ricanelo, who had won two of his three previous starts.
Rounding out the field were Fast Flashn (A Passion For Flashn-Hope Sheza Fast), Kings Touch (Eye Am King-Physical Touch), La Pantera (Chicks Regard-Cartier Panther), One Sweet Love (Jesse James Jr-Sugars
First Love), KJ Daddys Money (Big Daddy Cartel-KJ Kiss Me Goodbye), and Fine Am Eye (Eye Am King-Starsmith). Whisky Road was scratched.
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SPEEDHORSE July 2022 161
Bailey Ivey, Ruidoso Downs