LOS ALAMITOS : Corona Chick Continues Title Bid

Corona Chick’s spectacular victory in the Ed Burke Memorial Futurity on Sept. 28 propelled her to the top among national 2-year-old fillies and has her connections wondering about the possibility of her wearing the overall 2-year-old crown.

Corona Chick will run in tonight’s ninth race, the third division of the Kindergarten Futurity Trials. The Kindergarten has only three divisions, unlike the Bay Meadows, Governor’s Cup and Ed Burke Futurity run earlier this year. Most 2-year-old’s have either been turned out until next year or have dropped out of stakes-caliber competition.

Twenty-eight horses, however, have entered tonight’s trials for 10 spots in an estimated $300,000 final to be run Oct. 26, the same weekend as the $174,500 Los Alamitos Derby for 3-year-olds.

Four horses--Corona Chick, Waverino, Senor Draconic and Speckled Shorts, all major stakes winners this year--have been supplemented into the trials for $11,700, but only Corona Chick is considered a candidate for national honors.

She is undefeated in four starts at Los Alamitos, among them the Governor’s Cup Futurity for California-breds in August and the Grade I Ed Burke Memorial Futurity, and is the only filly to have won an unrestricted Grade I race in 1991.

If she wins the Kindergarten, she would be one of three horses to win two major futurities this year and could attract attention for 2-year-old of the year--a fact not lost on trainer Frank Monteleone, who has guided the filly to six victories in eight starts.

“I’m starting to think about it,” he said. “I think she should be a candidate. Who knows? Maybe even 2-year-old of the year.”

None of the championship talk would have materialized had Corona Chick simply not run away from a strong field in the Ed Burke, running 350 yards in 17.32 seconds, perhaps the fastest clocking by a 2-year-old filly in history. To give perspective to the victory, second-place Ed Grimley, who finished 1 3/4 lengths behind, was also second, a neck behind Royal Quick Dash, in the All-American Futurity on Sept. 2.

Monteleone has galloped the filly and schooled her in the starting gate in preparation for tonight’s trials without a workout since her last start--a common procedure for a 2-year-old in futurity season.

“She’s going absolutely perfect,” he said. “She is perfect right now. I don’t think you’ll see a 17.3 (time) Wednesday night because the track is kind of dead.”

Some of the leading contenders in the trials will be making their first starts at Los Alamitos. The first division includes Senor Draconic, a winner of five of six starts in Wyoming who has been impressive in morning workouts, and Speckled Shorts, a winner of five of seven starts and a second-place finisher behind Senor Draconic in Wyoming on July 27. The gelding has been off since that race, but is trained by Blane Schvaneveldt, the leader at this meeting.

Femmes Frolic, fifth in the All-American Futurity, drew the rail for his first Los Alamitos start in the second trial. Trained by Bruce Bell, he worked impressively under the lights between races on Sept. 28. The second division also features Waverino, who was a stakes winner in Utah last April, and is trained by Dennis Ekins.

Easily A Rogue, the leading filly at the Ruidoso meet, and Holland Ease, third in the Ed Burke, will challenge Corona Chick. Easily A Rogue is trained by Russell Harris, and Holland Ease--a winner of $111,045--is under the care of Bob Baffert.

See Me Gone, a leading candidate for quarter horse of the year, was soundly beaten last Friday night in trials for the Los Alamitos Derby. The 3-year-old filly, who won both the Rainbow and All-American derbies last summer at Ruidoso, finished sixth at odds of 2-5 and failed to qualify for the finals.

Instead, the top qualifier for the $174,500 race on Oct. 25 is Royal Bushwhacker, a two-time stakes winner at Los Alamitos in 1990. He finished fourth in the Rainbow and third in the All-American Derby behind See Me Gone.

“He ran a super race,” said Royal Bushwhacker’s jockey, Alvin Brossette, who will split his time this fall between Los Alamitos and Delta Downs in Vinton, La. “He broke on the front end and stayed there.

“I think he likes the track here. We can’t knock his last race (the All-American Derby on Sept. 1). It was against two of the best 3-year-olds in the country (See Me Gone and Refrigerator).”

Royal Bushwhacker won last year’s Breeders Juvenile Classic and Ivan Ashment Handicap. See Me Gone, on the other hand, had never started at Los Alamitos before the trials, to which trainer Bob Gilbert attributes her poor performance.

“It’s a new ballgame (here),” he said. “It’s a different climate, racing at night, a different track and a receiving barn (before the races). She was fine (the next morning).”

Gilbert said that the filly might be pointed to the Breeders Classic Night on Nov. 9, where she could possibly face older horses for the first time in the $125,000-added Breeders Championship Classic.

Los Alamitos Notes

Friday’s feature is the $12,500 Westminster Handicap for fillies and mares, and Saturday’s is the $100,000 Los Alamitos Championship, which means a berth in the $250,000 Champion of Champions for the winner. . . . Fairplex Park has suspended quarter horse simulcasts, beginning with tonight’s program. Officials plan to resume simulcasting when grandstand renovation is completed in time for the opening of the Hollywood Park thoroughbred meeting Nov. 13.

Macs Royal Diamond won last Saturday’s Bardella Handicap for California-breds. It was his fifth consecutive victory. Baychaino regained his position as the nation’s leading 870-yard horse with a three-quarter-length victory in last Thursday’s Endurance Handicap. Baychaino was last year’s champion distance horse and, along with Macs Royal Diamond, might reappear on Breeders’ Classics Night.

Trainer Marshall Ferrell was fined $750 after Awards Dasher, his horse in the 10th race Sept. 11, showed the presence of Pyrilamine, a prohibited drug. Awards Dasher finished third in that race, but has been disqualified and the purse money has been redistributed.