LOS ALAMITOS : Heisajoy Heads Field of 10 in $250,000 Champions Race for Quarter Horses

The world’s most prestigious race for older quarter horses will take place Saturday night at Los Alamitos when a field of 10, headed by Heisajoy, will compete in the $250,000 Champion of Champions XIX.

The Grade I event is an invitational race matching the top quarter horses from across the country at 440 yards.

In the previous 18 runnings of the Champion of Champions, 11 winners have gone on to be named World Champion Running Quarter Horse and the 1990 race should determine World Champion honors once again.

The role of the favorite should belong to Heisajoy, which just edged most of the horses he will be facing Saturday in the Grade I Breeders Championship Classic at Los Alamitos on Nov. 17. The H. L. Hooper-trained Heisajoy finished a head in front of Jazzing Hi and Tee Roy Reb while covering 440 yards in 21.47 seconds.

A victory in the Champion of Champions would be the fifth this year for Heisajoy and would almost insure the 5-year-old gelding the 1990 World Champion title.

Heisajoy is perfectly drawn in the six hole.

Here’s how the field will line up in post order; See Me Do It, Larry Layton the rider; Jazzing Hi, Bruce Pilkenton; Barbs Bounce, G. R. Carter; Sandys Love Bug, Danny Cardoza; Isaws Sugar Bear, John Creager; Heisajoy, Lackey; Dash for Speed, Kip Didericksen; Tee Roy Reb, Steve Treasure; Apprehend, Henry Garcia, and Wicked Dash, Luke Myles.

All horses in the race carry 122 pounds.

See Me Do It is the reigning 1989 World Champion and defending champion in the Champion of Champions. A win in the race this year may earn her a second straight World Champion title. The 4-year-old On a High mare from the Bobby Turner barn has won four of her seven starts this year.

However, in her most recent start in the Breeders Championship Classic, See Me Do It was fourth behind Heisajoy as the odds-on favorite.

See Me Do It may have had her chances compromised when she drew the rail post.

Dash for Speed has had her record tarnished in her only two starts at the current meet. She finished fifth in the Charger Bar Handicap and sixth in the Breeders Championship Classic. In her only other starts this year, Dash for Speed won the Anne Burnett Invitational and the Los Alamitos Championship Invitational both at Los Alamitos.

Jazzing Hi came up just a head behind Heisajoy in the Breeders Championship Classic. The 4-year-old has only one win this year, that in the Grade I Vessels Maturity.

Apprehend, one of only two 3-year-olds in the race, has earned more money this year than any other starter.