LOS ALAMITOS, CA—JULY 28, 2018—S-Quarter K LLC’s Heza Dasha Fire became only the third Quarter Horse in history to go over the $2.2 million mark in career earnings after dominating victory in her 2018 debut in the running of the Restricted Grade 1, $100,000 Spencer Childers California Breeders Championship Handicap on Saturday at Los Alamitos.

Heza Dasha Fire’s victory was worth $50,000 to bring his lifetime earnings to $2,217,987. Ochoa, who has earned a record $2,781,365, and Stolis Winner are the only other horses to reach the $2.2 million mark. Heza Dasha Fire is now only $24,675 for moving past Stolis Winner in the earnings list.

Ridden by Cruz Mendez for trainer Jose Flores, Heza Dasha Fire had a 1 ½ length lead at the midway point of the Spence Childers and from there he cruised to a final winning margin of ¾ lengths over LD Is Back.

Heza Dasha Fire covered the 400 yards in :19.546 while recording his 16th win 22 career starts. The 6-year-old gelding by Walk Thru Fire has finished out of the money only once in his career.

The Spencer Childers is also the 2015 AQHA world champion’s 10th career stakes win. Yet, as easy as Heza Dasha Fire made everything look on Saturday night, the days leading up to the Spencer Childers were anything but easy for his team.

“I don’t have enough word to describe (Heza Dasha Fire),” Flores said. “He’s amazing. We had some issues with him last week. He almost didn’t run tonight. Luckily, Dr. Rick Overly and his team did a great job with him and got him going the way he’s supposed to. Hopefully tomorrow everything is good and Dr. Overly will be looking at him for the next week or so to make sure he’s okay. The Bank of America California Championship is in two weeks and it’s still a maybe or maybe not for him. He still has problems from the Leptospirosis he got two years ago. The horse has had problems because of it on and off. When he tells us something is off, we stop. If he remains healthy and sound then we’ll keep going with him. We’ll go from there.”

Leptospirosis is a bacterial infection with various symptoms that include weight loss, eye redness and swelling, uveitis, abdominal pain, dysuria, etc. It is believed that Heza Dasha Fire contracted the infection in December of 2016.

“We have to give a lot of credit to Dr. Overly and his staff,” said Don Meneely of S-Quarter K LLC. “They, along with Jose, were on top of everything right from the start. With us being 1,000 miles away we were on top of it as much as we could. They have a great team behind him and they did the absolute best for him and kept a close watch on him. Everything was fine today and he had been eating well the last three or four days. He was ready to go.”

There was no stopping Heza Dasha Fire in the Spencer Childers, his fourth win December of 2016.

“Every time I’m in a slump, this horse seems to get me out,” Flores added. “I wish this would last my whole life, but there’s only so much that can happen. It’s been a tough week because we lost our great friend and a great owner in John Andreini. I know he’s watching from up there. He would always call me after we did well. We’re going to miss him a lot.”

As for Heza Dasha Fire, this was his ninth Grade 1 or Restricted Grade 1 victory of his career.

“He broke like a rocket and that’s always good to see,” Meneely added. “He had to have his blinkers replaced behind the gate, but he is a professional. You are always concern when it’s the first race of the year, but when you see him break out of the gate on top and those first 200 years he just exploded, which was really fun to see. For his first race out he finished pretty strong and that was a respectable time. He’ll race again in two weeks if he’s right. We’re very pleased.”

Darling Farms, Jaime Gomez, and Valeriano Racing Stable’s LD Is Back earned $21,500 for running second.

Tarzanito, a son of Favorite Cartel owned by A1A Racing and trained by Yanet Rodriguez finished third.

Royaltys Authority, Katella Deli, and Renewed completed the field.