LOS ALAMITOS : Down With Debt Has Chance to Be Champion

Los Alamitos saved the best for last, as 10 stakes races, including the $200,000 Champion of Champions, are scheduled for tonight, the final program of the 141-day quarter horse meet.

Heading the field for the Champion of Champions, tonight’s 10th race, is the leading contender for world champion honors, Down With Debt. A victory would leave the 4-year-old mare undefeated for the year and end Refrigerator’s two-year world champion reign.

Owned by George Haddad and trained by Charlie Bloomquist, Down With Debt will face a tough field that includes Refrigerator, Brotherly, Femmes Frolic, Specially Fast, I Hear A Symphony, Sound Dash, Childish, Sheza First Down and Seals.

Seals, who finished in a dead heat for third in the Z. Wayne Griffin Directors Trial, was allowed to enter the Champion of Champions after Avison was scratched. The Connie Hall-trained Avison appeared in distress in his last start Nov. 11, when he unseated rider Joe Badilla, Jr.

Tonight’s 15-race program also includes six Quarter Horse Breeders Classics races, two overnight handicaps for quarter horses and one Arabian stake race.