Saturday, July 31, 2010
Holding off a late charge from longshot Mr. Golden Ruler (TB), reigning champion distance horse Gone To The Mountain scored his seventh career stakes victory in Saturday’s $30,000 Master Salls Handicap at Ruidoso Downs.
Gone To The Mountain was sent to post as the 2-5 favorite, and the 5-year-old stallion responded by covering 870 yards in :44.504, earning a season-best 107 speed index and missing Twotimesthefly’s track record by just 8/1000ths of a second. Freddie Martinez rode Gone To The Mountain for owner Clyde Woerner and trainer Wes Giles.
Bred by Woerner, Gone To The Mountain is one of 14 stakes winners from four crops sired by Panther Mountain, an 11-year-old son of Meter Me Gone and the sport’s champion aged stallion in 2003. To date, Panther Mountain has sired the earners of more than $5.3 million from 271 starters, including three-time Grade 1 winner DMNV Mountable. The stallion stands for a $4,000 fee at Lazy E Ranch at Guthrie, Oklahoma.
Gone To The Mountain’s dam, Lindys Bouquet, is a winning daughter of the Streakin Six stallion Fast Lindy. Now 15, Lindys Bouquet is a half sister to Bobbys Royal Crown, a stakes-winning and Grade 3-placed son of Royal Shake Em, and 2000 Gillespie County Fair Futurity (G3) finalist Otooles Pride.
Gone To The Mountain’s third dam, the Super Sound Charge mare Le Bouquet, produced two winners, including Bouquet Robin, a Chicks Beduino filly who qualified to the Grade 1 Heritage Place and Remington Park futurities in 1994. The stallion’s fourth dam, Le Fleur, was a 1974 foal by Azure Te (TB) who ran third in the 1977 Golden State Derby at Bay Meadows and La Primera del Ano Derby at Los Alamitos.
Gone To The Mountain has won 13 of 25 races, and the winner’s share of the $30,000 Master Salls purse increased his earnings to $458,837. The stallion has won seven straight and 10 of his last 11 races, including last year’s Grade 1, $125,000 AQHA Distance Challenge Championship at Los Alamitos.
Sheet Burns ran third, three-quarters of a length behind Gone To The Mountain, and was followed by Loves Bonus, Chocolate Mountain, Chop Shop Special, and Jess Jones.
Runner-up Mr. Golden Ruler earned $6,600 for his owner, Ramon O. Gonzalez Jr., who claimed the 5-year-old Tribal Rule (TB) gelding for $10,000 on January 30. Since the claim, Mr. Golden Ruler has won three of seven races and has banked $70,560. He was coming off of a second-place finish to Chocolate Mountain in the 870-yard, $50,000 Dr. O.G. Fischer Memorial Handicap at SunRay Park on June 26.
An 8-year-old gelding by champion Okey Dokey Dale, Sheet Burns banked $3,000 for owner Regalado MacLovio. Sheet Burns has earned $219,171 from 69 outs, and his 15 wins include last year’s $40,000 Fine Loom Handicap at Ruidoso.