Tuesday, May 31, 2011
A total of 80 New Mexico-bred 2-year-olds have been entered in Friday's Mountain Top Quarter Horse Futurity (RG2) trials at Ruidoso Downs.
Eight 350-yard trials will be run, with the 10 fastest qualifiers making the $276,548 Mountain Top Futurity final on Sunday, June 19. Post time for the first trial will be 1 p.m. (MDT), while the eighth and final heat scheduled for 4:02 p.m.
PK Bay, a chestnut gelding by Brookstone Bay and the runner-up to Osbaldo in the April 10 New Mexican Spring Futurity (RG2) at Sunland Park, drew post 2 in the second trial. Owned by David Barrett and Sue H. May from the barn of Fred Danley, PK Bay has earned $50,728 from one win in two starts.
Gary Kloppenburg's Sparklin Royal, a homebred gray daughter of Sixes Royal, will break from post 2 in the sixth heat. Sparklin Royal has banked $29,604 from three outs, and her stakes record includes a third-place finish in the New Mexican Spring Futurity.
Another contender, Felipe Flores Jr.'s Perfect Crime, is the only horse entered with two wins. A sorrel colt by the first-year Dash Ta Fame stallion Famous Lane, Perfect Crime won two of his three races last spring at Sunland Park and was a finalist in the New Mexican Spring Futurity.
Fifty-two of the 80 horses entered in Friday's Mountain Top Futurity trials are first-time starters. Past winners of the Mountain Top Futurity, which began in 2004 as the Ruidoso Horse Sale Futurity, include Dosi and Norma Alvarez's Dash Ta Moon in 2005 and A & A Ranch's Gonna Ro Sham Bo in '06.