Deelish Favored in Winter Championships

Deelish, honored as last year’s Champion Aged Mare, leads an impressive field tonight in the inaugural running of the $258,000 Los Alamitos Winter Championships at 400 yards. First post is 6:30 p.m.

Deelish, second in last year’s Champion of Champions race to world champion A Ransom and a lifetime winner of $572,713, is a 2-1 morning-line favorite and will break from post No. 1. The winner of the winter championship earns a starting berth to the Grade 1 Champion of Champions, Dec. 16 at Los Alamitos.

Deelish will be challenged by Significant Speed, voted 2000 champion 3-year-old filly, and Meddlin in Money, trained by Blake Schvaneveldt and a 3-1 choice. The rest of the field includes Hawkinson, Rare Prince, Texas Classy, Royalanon, Bubbas Bullet and Gonna Get It On.

On Sunday in New Orleans, Schvaneveldt will be inducted into the American Quarter Horse Assn. Hall of Fame. Schvaneveldt, who has saddled horses at Los Alamitos since the early 1970s, is the track’s all-time leading trainer with nearly 3,500 victories.

Edward C. Allred, owner of Los Alamitos Race Course, will be honored as quarter horse racing’s Champion Owner and Breeder of 2000.

Other Los Alamitos-based horses receiving honors Sunday are A Ransom (world champion), Separatist (champion 3-year-old), Dashing Knud (champion 2-year-old gelding), Secret Card (champion 2-year-old filly), Willie Wanta Dash (champion aged stallion), Sign of Lanty (champion distance horse) and Separate Ways (brood mare of the year).