Page 46 - January 6 2012

Challenger Six Handicap
kC RoyAl FluSH
by Tracy Gantz
At 17 hands and 1,300 pounds, KC Royal Flush was probably always destined for 870-yard races.
“His nickname is Tractor,” said trainer Dominic Duree. “He’ll drag you to the hay pile and the walker. He just fills the starting gate.”
Big as he is, KC Royal Flush has a wonder- ful disposition.
“He’s the sweetest, most loving thing,” said Duree. “He’s so big and lovable, but boy does he eat.”
KC Royal Flush worked off a few calories when he captured the $110,000 Challenger
Six Handicap on Dec. 17 at Sunland Park. He gave his connections and backers some anxious moments, though, because he got up at the last possible moment to win the 870-yard stakes.
“He got a clean shot for once,” said Duree. “He doesn’t break very fast, and then some- times he gets a little scared when he gets squeezed. But Tony Guymon did a great job.
Tony has been working him, and I finally got a chance to put him up.”
As usual, KC Royal Flush
broke tardily, racing next-
to-last into the turn as four
horses rushed to the lead.
Guymon settled him in on
the rail and then angled him
off of it as the field headed into the stretch. KC Royal Flush came running between horses, but he was still well behind the three leaders, Klassic Strawfly, Corona Dream, and Bullets Brother, who were battling in a line. KC Royal Flush closed a tremendous amount of ground in the final yards to win by a neck in :45.352.
“He’s a four-year-old who’s still a baby,” said Duree.
The trainer knows Tractor well. He broke him for owner-breeders Kathryn Maynard and Carla Feerer, who gelded the colt before
sending him to Duree. “Fortunately, he wasn’t
that big when he was getting broke,” said Duree. “He had these big eyes and was kind of a monster for a while.”
Duree has a training cen- ter at his home in Belen, New Mexico, not far from where
Maynard and Feerer live in Los Lunas. “We all live on land by the Rio Grande
River,” Duree said. “It’s all horse people down there. We grow good alfalfa and raise cattle.”
The 2011 season was by far the gelding’s best to date. He spent his two-year-old season and the first part of his three-year-old season in shorter races, but he broke his maiden the first time he attempted 870 yards. He won his first stakes last August in the John Augustine Stakes, and the Challenger Six is his biggest payday. The $66,000 he earned elevated his lifetime bankroll to $192,834.
Duree said he would take Tractor back to his training center and turn him out for at least a month before getting on him again in anticipation of the 2012 racing season.
Maynard and Feerer bred KC Royal Flush in New Mexico from the winning mare Willie May Dash. KC Royal Flush is the mare’s first winner, though her other three starters have all placed. The second dam, My Honeys Alibi, finished second in the 1995 AQHA Northwest Juvenile Challenge Stakes at Sun Downs.
Martin Orona Sr. trains and co-owns second-place Bullets Brother (Real Runaway- Alexanders Lady Luck) with Veronica Gonzalez, and Vicente Grajeda rode the geld- ing. Two races back, Bullets Brother won the New Mexico Classic Cup 870 Championship at Zia Park.
Corona Dream (Southern Corona-Call My Dream), with Salvador Martinez aboard, finished third for owner Howlet Heysol and trainer Roberto Sanchez. At three in 2010, Corona Dream won the Getaway Stakes at Sunland Park.
Completing the field were BRT Opulence (Real Runaway-La Vita E Bella), Klassic Strawfly (Genuine Strawfly-A Classic Song), Rabbit Revival (Rabbits Rainbow-French Revival), Lalumbredelospateres (Boppem Kona Man-Cowgirl Candy-TB), and Mary For Money (Metallic Lion-Thirty Fourth Street). Cool Redalo and Whata Lucky Man were scratched.
Sunland Park $110,000 • 870 yards :45.352 • si 84
Royal Quick Dash
Sixes Royal
Tempered Glass
KC ROYAL FLUSH, g.
Willie Wanta Dash
Willie May Dash
My Honeys Alibi
KC Royal Flush went four-wide to win the Challenger Six Handicap by a neck margin
44 SPEEDHORSE, January 6, 2012
Racing news
lisa Dominguez/Coady Photography