LOS ALAMITOS, CA—APRIL 22, 2018—Owner Kolleen Ledgerwood and trainer Roberto Dominguez have a special talent in their barn by the name of Jimbosecret.

The Oklahoma-bred gelding by No Secrets Here won his racing debut at Los Alamitos Race Course in wire-to-wire fashion, pulling away from his rivals at the midway point of the 300-yard race in route to a tremendous 1-½ length victory from post number one on Sunday night.

Ridden by Jonathan Roman for trainer Roberto Dominguez, Jimbosecret covered the distance in :15.929. Jimbosecret has impressed his connections not only because of his racing ability, but also because of how he has handled the challenges of being nearly blind from his left eye, a result of an infection according to the trainer.

"He was fine when we bought him at the Los Alamitos Equine Sale," said Dominguez of the $30,000 purchase. "Then he got this eye infection, which left his vision impaired. His eye just got cloudier and cloudier, but he does have some vision there."

Jimbosecret has shown tremendous poise throughout the preparations for his debut.

"I wasn’t worried about Jimbosecret starting from post number one," Dominguez said. "We’ve been training him all along to get him used to running from the rail because he is nearly blind from his left eye. We did different things with him in training to see how he would react to the movement of other horses. Nothing has bothered him so far. He ran a little green in his debut, but I figured that that was a possibility in his first outing. I feel we’ve prepared him for many different scenarios because of his eye. We’ve trained him differently because of it."

In training, Dominguez came up with creative ideas to test Jimbosecret’s feel for racing against other horses.

"We always galloped him with company and put him in different sides of the other horse," Dominguez continued. ‘We would move him around during the gallops and the horses always did well. Sergio Gonzalez introduced him to the saddle and he did a great job with the horse. That helped a lot."

And the result was an emphatic win from the Vaughn and Jill Cook-bred runner.

"He’s talented," Dominguez said. "He’s a natural runner. I don’t have to do too much with him as far as that is concerned."

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Courtesy of www.losalamitos.com.