Page 31 - February 2017

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See Jessies First Down’s pedigree on page 42.
When we look at the 2015 race record
for Jessies First Down, you can see this 2011 gelding start blossoming as a racehorse. He was a non-winner in nine starts at two and three. Then as a 4 year old, he won two races including the Hialeah Maturity to become
a stakes winner with two second place
finishes - one in the Sam Houston Challenge Championship-G2 and another in the Sam Abbey Memorial Invitational. He was a finalist in three additional Grade 1 races for the year.
Jessies First Down started 2016 with an allowance win and then a second place finish in the City of Hialeah Stakes in January. He then won the Miami-Dade County Stakes
in February. From there, he wouldn’t look back until Dec. 31, 2016, with his final
win of the year in the Championship at Sunland Park Stakes-G1. He made 11 starts, accumulating eight wins and three second place finishes, and earning $430,042 while racing at five different tracks. He won the
Zia Park Championship-G1, the Refrigerator Handicap-G1, and the Sam Houston Classic Stakes-G2 during the year. His five stakes wins were all at 440 yards, with three of them being Grade 1 events. All this earned him the title of 2016 World Champion, Champion Aged Horse, and Champion Aged Gelding.
Jessies First Down is raced by his breeder, Ted Abrams of Houston, Texas, and he is trained by Judd Kearl. The riders for Jessies First Down in 2016 were Rodrigo Vallejo, Jose Alvarez, and Cody Jensen. Kearl had a phenomenal year as well and received the 2016 AQHA Champion Trainer award, training World Champion Jessies First Down as well as Champion 3 Year Old, Champion 3-Year-Old Colt EC Jet One.
Ted Abrams gives us some background on how the big change came about that enabled Jessies First Down to achieve his World Championship title. “Jessies First Down was fast as a 2 year old, but he was having trouble figuring out the gates,” Abrams stated. “He
was always a half-side or full-side late coming away from the gate. At Ruidoso, he had some chips in the knee that we had to clean up. So, we cleaned them up and turned him out to rehab. Then, we brought him back as a 3 year old and he was having the same problems - just not attentive at the gates. Wasn’t quick away from the gate.
“Then, he started to figure it out as a
4 year old,” Abrams continued about how the blossoming started in 2015. “Judd was training him at Hialeah Park for the Hialeah Maturity, and we were a 32 to 1 morning line shot in the finals for that race. When they opened the gate, he stepped away with them and that is probably the best he had ever gotten away from the gate.
“Earlier that morning, Judd told me that if he steps away with them at the start, they won’t like him very much,” Abrams recalled. “He stepped away with them and, just as he always has from about 350 to 440 yards, he
SPEEDHORSE, February 2017 29
SPEEDLINES