Page 58 - August 2021

Empressum winning the $678,253 Rainbow Derby-G1 on July 24.
Stop Cafe won the 2020 Heritage Place Juvenile Stakes and then she went to Ruidoso to win the Rainbow Futurity and the All American Futurity.
The enthusiasm we see and feel at Ruidoso every year increases with the winner of what is now the Ruidoso Futurity. The winner of that first race is the only horse eligible to win the Triple Crown. Then the excitement heightens when the same horse wins the Rainbow Futurity and all that is left is to win the All American Futurity.
The first time this scenario happened was
in 1974 when Tiny’s Gay won the Kansas Futurity and then came back to win the Rainbow Futurity. Tiny’s Gay had been such a dominant runner that it looked like we would have the first All American Triple Crown winner. But a little mare named Easy Date had other ideas as she won the All American with Tiny’s Gay finishing second.
while Uptown Dynasty was second. Eagle Jazz won his trial to the All American Futurity but didn’t qualify, and Fly Baby Fly won.
Special Effort came to the mountain in 1981 where he won the All American Triple Crown, making him the only horse to date to win this series. He dominated the three races winning the Kansas Futurity by 1-length
over Bar Roulucks; the Rainbow Futurity
by 1 1/4-lengths over Winkum; and then
on a sloppy track he won the All American Futurity by 4-lengths over Go For Bugs. It took 17 years to get the first All American Triple Crown winner. But it has been 40 years since Special Effort took the elusive Triple Crown for two-year-old racing Quarter Horses. Will there be another Special Effort?
THE 2021 ALL AMERICAN TRIPLE CROWN
Now let’s see how the 2021 Triple Crown
him the only horse to be eligible for the All American Triple Crown.
The win by Jess Savin Candy in the Ruidoso Futurity and the second place by Jess Fire Me set up the scenario of a showdown in the Rainbow Futurity trials between these two horses. When the Rainbow Futurity trials came around Jess Savin Candy was the fastest qualifier on day one with a time of :19.538 in trial 13 of the 14 trials run on that day. Jess Fire Me won the fourth trial on July 9 in a time of :19.652. Jess Fire Me won but his time put him in the Rainbow Juvenile Stakes. This brought an end to the dual between Jess Savin Candy and Jess Fire Me in the Rainbow Futurity, but not the end of Jess Savin Candy and his quest for the All American Triple Crown.
But our plot thickens as Candy Dice was the fastest qualifier for the Rainbow Futurity in a time of :19.477. A time she set on the second day of the trials. This filly entered the trials
for the Rainbow as an unknown commodity
The next two horses to repeat this
scenario were Deceptively and Treacherously. Deceptively was the winner of the 1992 Kansas Futurity and the Rainbow Futurity. She would not run in the All American which was won
by Dash Thru Traffic. Deceptively was the last winner of the Kansas Futurity in the Triple Crown series. The first Ruidoso Futurity was won by Treacherously in 1993 and he won the Rainbow Futurity. Treacherously finished third behind A Classic Dash and Heza Fast Man in second in the All American. Roger Knight was the breeder of Deceptively and Treacherously giving him an interesting link to the history
of the All American Triple Crown as he was
the breeder of the last Kansas Futurity winner and the first Ruidoso Futurity winner. Leading Spirit would be the next horse to win the Ruidoso Futurity and the Rainbow Futurity
in 2005. Teller Cartel won the All American with Leading Spirit not in the finals. Eagle Jazz finished in a deadheat with Uptown Dynasty for the win in the 2017 Ruidoso Futurity, and then Eagle Jazz won the Rainbow Futurity
races are shaping up. The trials for the 2021 Ruidoso Futurity saw 309 two-year-old runners go to the post on May 28 and 29 with 16 trials on each day. The top five times from each day qualified to the finals. Jess Fire Me with a time of :17.43 and Jess Savin Candy with a time of :17.430 from the first day of the trials were the top two qualifiers. They went first and second in the ninth trial. Revenant Moon with a time of :17.462 from the second day of the trials was the third fastest qualifier and the top qualifier from day 2 of the trials.
When the gates opened for the finals, it became a two horse race with the top two qualifiers hitting the finish line first this time with Jess Savin Candy winning and Jess Fire Me coming in second. Jess Savin Candy hit the wire in a time of :17.559 and Jess Fire Me hitting the wire in a time of :17.599. Revenant Moon would “step back losing her path at the start”
to not be a factor in the race. She was the heavy favorite based on her good time in her trial
and the fact that she had won the Oklahoma Futurity-G2. The win by Jess Savin Candy made
as she had one race before her trial where she finished second in a maiden race for probable starters in the Rainbow. She came back to win her Rainbow trial giving her a first and second in two starts with earnings of $6,340. Then
we look and see that she is trained by John Stinebaugh, the trainer of Jess Savin Candy. They live next door to each other as stable mates. They are both sired by Jess Good Candy.
When we look at the Rainbow qualifiers
for 2021, we see some interesting competitors that gave these two top qualifiers a run for their money. Here are some examples of this based
on their pedigree history in the Triple Crown races. The third fastest qualifier was CC Hocks in a time of :19.544 on the first day of the trials. CC Hocks was second by a nose in the Rainbow Futurity final. This colt is sired by Kiss My Hocks winner of the 2014 Ruidoso Futurity and this colt is out of Cassandra Crest the dam of Apocalyptical Jess, the winner of the 2018 All American Futurity-G1. Lethal Viper, the fourth fastest qualifier and Lethal Avenger, ninth fastest qualifier, are sired by Volcom and out of mares
56 SPEEDHORSE August 2021
Jake Rogers, Ruidoso Downs