Andrade Hopes to Cop the Kindergarten

Poly Gyve One Corona will be trainer Elena Andrade’s first Grade I contender when the Corona Czech gelding enters the starting gate for the $325,000 Kindergarten Futurity on Saturday night at Los Alamitos.

Andrade, the wife of Oscar Andrade, a former jockey who was paralyzed from the waist down after being involved in a spill at the track on Sept. 27, 2001, probably will be nervous.

“I’m very nervous all the time,” she said after post positions were drawn for the 300-yard Kindergarten, the first important race of the year for 2-year-olds. “It doesn’t matter if it’s a big race or a claiming race. My work is on the line.”

Maybe the trainers of the nine other Kindergarten entrants should be a tad uptight.

A California-bred owned by Iliana and Ismael Marquez, Poly Gyve One Corona, whose dam is the Runaway Winner mare Jts Starlight, is unbeaten in two starts and was the fastest qualifier for the Kindergarten. On May 6, he won his trial by half a length, completing the distance in 15.30 seconds after leaving from the inside post.

That victory -- in the seventh of 11 trials that night -- was posted three weeks after an even more visually impressive win. Breaking from the outside in a field of seven in his debut, Poly Gyve One Corona won by 2 1/2 lengths at 7-1.

If Poly Gyve One Corona does win on Saturday, it will be the third Kindergarten victory for the Andrade family. Before he was injured, Oscar Andrade, who assists his wife with the stable, won the Kindergarten in consecutive years, scoring with Secret Card in 2000 and Sassy Smith in 2001.

Both Secret Card and Sassy Smith were trained by Jaime Gomez and owned by Dr. James Streelman and Denny Boer, who race as Dutch Masters III. The trio will try to win the Kindergarten again Saturday with Check This Runner, a maiden who qualified despite running third in his trial.

Gomez, who finished 1-2 in the Kindergarten a year ago with Gold Nugget Rd and Higher Fire and who won the race for the first time in 1996 with Corona Cartel, will send out two others: Vachetta, a Texas-bred daughter of Corona Cartel, and Jess Sass Me, who finished second to Poly Gyve One as the 9-10 favorite in the trials.