Horse Brings Out Animal in Him

The scrawny young filly looked more like a pony than a racehorse. Even her mother would have called her a runt. The only thing Ramiro Lopez found attractive was her ears. But the Texas tortilla man was looking for a horse to run in a futurity at a bush track across the border in Mexico, so he made an offer.

Lopez didn’t go to his back pocket, he went to his barnyard. He put up two calves, two pigs and a cattle dog, and the deal was struck. This was in 1993, and for that menagerie, Lopez became the owner of Kool Kue Baby, a 6-year-old mare who has grown up some but is still a small horse. Weighing less than 1,000 pounds, Kool Kue Baby has won a record 23 stakes, earned $641,228 and two national titles, and on Sunday night at Los Alamitos, she’ll try to win the $350,000 Coors Champion of Champions. The winner of the 440-yard race will probably be voted world champion, quarter horse racing’s equivalent of horse of the year.

Evidently there are pigs, and then there are pigs. Jim McIngvale, a Texan who sells hundreds of mattresses every day and has spent millions on thoroughbreds, once bought a pig at auction for $77,000. K.C. Carden, who has trained Kool Kue Baby since 1996, wants you to know that his mare wasn’t sold for just any pig.

“The way I heard it,” Carden said, “these were show pigs. Those were show calves. So it might have been a little more than what it seemed.”

Armando Lopez, the owner’s son, covered for the dog this week as he interpreted for his Spanish-speaking father from Dallas.

“He says that the dog was very special,” the younger Lopez said. “He was very good at rounding up cattle.”

When Kool Kue Baby won the Refrigerator Handicap on Nov. 28 at Lone Star Park near Dallas, she became very special. That was her 23rd stakes win, breaking the record set by Jolly Jet Deck, a mare whose six-year career ended in 1972. Jolly Jet Deck’s biggest one-race paycheck was $10,000. On Nov. 14, the night Kool Kue Baby tied Jolly Jet’s record with a 22nd stakes win, she earned more than $150,000 for winning the MBNA America Challenge Championship at Lone Star.

Kool Kue Baby, who has started 51 times, ran in the Champion of Champions in 1996, the year she was voted champion mare and champion aged horse, and finished eighth at Los Alamitos.

“She had an infection in her throat and was off her feed,” Carden said. “We also vanned her here from Arizona, and that might have stressed her out.”

Since then, Kool Kue Baby has undergone surgery for the throat and been treated for an ulcer, and this time she came to California first class, flying in from Texas two weeks ago.

“It was the first time she flew and she handled it perfectly,” Carden said. “She’ll be 100% ready, but this is like the Super Bowl or a college team going to a bowl game. There are a lot of nice horses in the race. I just know that my mare will run her heart out, like she always does.”

Carden, 31, is a former track-and-field coach who could move pretty quickly himself. In high school in Dallas, he ran on the 400-meter relay team that won the 1984 Texas Relays. Carden’s quarter horse career began in 1991 with a two-horse stable in Des Moines.

When Ramiro Lopez wanted to send Kool Kue Baby to Turf Paradise in Phoenix for a race in 1996, Carden was available and he has been with the mare ever since. Lopez, 55, has been in business for 30 years in Houston and Dallas and says that he sells

$10 million worth of tortillas a year.

“I am very honored to have been able to race this horse,” Lopez said. “I appreciate how K.C. has worked with her. He has done a magnificent job getting her ready for the races and deserves a ton of credit.”

Heza Ramblin Man and SLM Big Daddy, who are old rivals, were separated by only a neck at the wire in the Los Alamitos Championship on Oct. 10 and are the favorites Sunday. SLM Big Daddy, last year’s world champion and Champion of Champions winner, is 5-2, and Heza Ramblin Man is 3-1. At 5-1 are Kool Kue Baby and Corona Cash, winner of the Los Alamitos Derby. Heza Ramblin Man and Dean Miracle, who is 30-1, are the horses that could give trainer Blane Schvaneveldt a 10th win in the Champion of Champions.

The field, in post-position order:

Blushin Bugs, Dean Miracle, Corona Cash, Fabulous Form, Deposit Cash, Don Callender, Heza Ramblin Man, SLM Big Daddy, The Casanova and Kool Kue Baby.

Gilbert Ortiz, Kool Kue Baby’s regular rider, is recovering from a broken ankle. Tami Purcell, who rode Kool Kue Baby to her two most recent wins at Lone Star, is committed to Corona Cash, so Carden has hired Alvin Brossette, who has ridden his mare several times this year.

Lopez hasn’t decided whether he’ll run Kool Kue Baby another year. “Some people have expressed interest in buying her,” he said, “but no one has been specific about what they would pay.”

If she is sold again, Kool Kue Baby will bring more than a few barnyard types this time.

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On Saturday night, Los Alamitos will run the $1,173,605 Los Alamitos Million Futurity, which is being billed as the richest race for any breed in California this year. Trainer Donna McArthur, who won the Million last year with This Snow Is Royal, will start three horses--Fodice, Night Time Deelites and IBA Dasher--in the 400-yard race. Fodice was the fastest qualifier. “She can flat-out fly,” McArthur said, “and I think the distance suits her to perfection.”

The Million field, starting on the inside: A Gals First Down, Viking Annes Dash, Kingman Kid, Sunset Dash, Flash First, IBA Dasher, Proper Precaution, Fodice, Night Time Deelites and Romeo Ryon.