Childers Having Wire-to-Wire Fun

Ageless horse owner Spencer Childers is having the time of his life again at Los Alamitos Race Course.

His horse Uncas, named after a character in the novel “Last of the Mohicans,” went wire to wire to win the 350-yard, $150,000 Governor’s Cup Futurity June 29, making Childers only the second horseman to win the Grade 1 stakes race three times.

Last weekend, he was again in the winner’s circle, this time to present the championship trophy for a $40,000 stakes race named in his honor.

Coast Express and jockey Joe Badilla Jr. won the Spencer Childers’ California Breeders Championship.

That the horse Outlasting, Childers’ entry in the race, finished fourth doesn’t diminish the streak of good fortune the 80-year-old owner has enjoyed this season.

A member of the Los Alamitos board of directors, he has been coming to the track since it opened 46 years ago. But he was taken by surprise in 1993 when the track created his namesake race, a Grade 2 stakes event for California-bred horses.

“They must have thought I was dead,” he said. “They usually name races after people who have died.”

Childers and his stable have been anything but lifeless lately. He has been breeding champion horses for 50 years on his 200-acre spread in Fresno and Uncas is considered one of the top 2-year-olds at the track. It posted the second-fastest time in qualifying for Friday’s $177,000 Ed Burke Memorial Futurity and has won three consecutive races. Stablemate Luva Secret also qualified for the race, winning the second of four qualifying heats.

Of all the horses he has raised, Uncas might be the best, he said. “Uncas represents six generations of my breeding,” he said. “He comes from a background that produced three world champions.”

Childers is proud of his methods of raising quarter horses.

“The only one I can compare Uncas with is his fifth Dam, Bunnys Barmaid,” he said. “At this point in his career, he looks like he’s as good as any I’ve had. But I’m very happy with Luva Secret. He has been very impressive, too.”

Childers no longer pilots his personal plane from Fresno to Southern California to attend races at Los Alamitos, but he can often be seen wheeling his big motor home into the track’s parking lot.

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Los Alamitos jockey Billy Peterson guided the nation’s top quarter horse, Winalota Cash, to a half-length victory July 14 in the Heritage Place Derby at Remington Park in Oklahoma City.

The victory was worth $205,310 and pushed the earnings of the 3-year-old gelding to more than $1.6 million.

But it wasn’t easy.

Lady Is Royal, owned by Abigail K. Kawananakoa, flipped on her back shortly after being loaded into the starting gate and caught Winalota Cash with one of her hooves. Winalota Cash was cut on his left ankle and his flank. The cut on his flank left a big knot.

The horses had to be reloaded into the gate and when they finally went off, Peterson found his mount behind longshot Ratify. But Peterson took over, tapping the horse only once or twice near the end of the race to secure the 440-yard victory, finishing only 14/100s of a second off the track record.

Winalota Cash is the only horse in the history of the quarter horse industry to win the Remington Park and Heritage Place derbies. The gelding, with Peterson aboard, is expected to race in the Los Alamitos Derby in December.

“This horse, if it gets bumped or banged around at the start, it just doesn’t seem to bother him,” Peterson said. “In a quarter horse race, if you get hit or spun around at the start, it’s usually over for you, you’re eliminated.”

Peterson said Winalota Cash took the injuries it received in the starting gate in stride.

“He had quite a few cuts on him and it still didn’t bother him,” he said. “It didn’t bother his concentration at all.”

Peterson, who works as a stockbroker when he is not riding, says Winalota Cash could be the best quarter horse racing has ever seen.

“As far as I’m concerned, we’ve got our Cigar of the quarter horse industry,” he said, comparing his mount to the champion thoroughbred. “This horse is able to overcome problems and setbacks just like Cigar and all the other great horses do.”

Statistics back up that statement. Winalota Cash has won 12 of 17 races it has started, finishing second the other five times. The horse has won five of six starts this year, and is considered the favorite in the trials for the $200,000 All-American Derby on Aug. 16 at New Mexico’s Ruidoso Downs.