LOS ALAMITOS : Precious Cargo Takes Win Streak Into the Sires Stakes for Trotters

June Jeffries’ Precious Cargo will be gunning for his third straight victory when he takes on arch-rival Mighty Trouble and nine others in the $20,000 California Sires Stakes for 2-year-old trotting colts and geldings tonight at Los Alamitos.

Also on tonight’s program are $6,000 “split” elimination divisions of a California Sires Stakes for 3-year-old trotting colts and geldings. Carded as the second and third races on the 10-event program, the sires stakes has 13 entrants, with the top five finishers from each division meeting next Thursday night in a $20,000 finale.

Capital Game and Rowdy Mariah are considered the trotters to beat in the second race, whereas U Bu Go and Crown Holding are the likely favorites in the third race.

In post position order, the field for the feature is: Precious Cargo, Stan Bayless in the race bike; Sacramento Jim, Ken Williams; Flowers Hunter, Rick Plano; Cabana Star, Jim Grundy; Hunter Kelly, Jim Lackey; Sleek Mariah, Joe Lighthill; Dynamite Spirit, Nicol Tremblay; Ron’s Hunter, Steve Desomer; Gstaad, Joe Anderson; Mighty Trouble, Ross Croghan, and Jamb Lucky, George Cliff. Flowers Hunter and Rons Hunter, owned by Lonnie Beck, will race as an entry.

Mighty Trouble and Jamb Lucky will start from the second tier in the 2-year-old sires stakes, which will go as the eighth race on the program. Trained by Joe Lighthill, Precious Cargo comes into tonight’s feature sporting a two-race winning streak, with one of those wins coming in a similar breeder’s stakes on Aug. 30. The son of Cape Canaveral out of Speedy Gail went wire-to-wire then to win by a half-length over Mighty Trouble. Precious Cargo posted a time of 2:05 over a “dull” surface, and he’ll have to go faster tonight to get the job done. Stan Bayless will take over the driving chores.

Mighty Trouble, from the barn of Walter Bickford, is again the one to beat tonight. The son of Camp David, the top 2-year-old trotter at Cal Expo, gave Precious Cargo a battle two weeks ago, but came up a half-length short after battling first over the last half-mile.