LOS ALAMITOS, CA—JUNE 12, 2013—Racing for his new connections of owners Dan Ray and John Orlandini, multiple winner Alota Cartel will go after her third victory in a row in Saturday's running of the $61,600 Los Alamitos Claiming Futurity.

Trained by Charles Treece and ridden by Santiago Mendez, Alota Cartel is one of four horses racing in this 350-yard final that was claimed on trial night back on May 26. Alota Cartel won her trial by 1-½ lengths with Mendez aboard. In fact, Mendez has ridden the filly in all three of her previous starts. Alota Cartel's new owners will be taking part in their first major Quarter Horse event.

"A few months ago Dan called me to talk about the Claiming Futurity," Treece said. "We talked about it for a while and we decided to give it a look. Dan has never had a Quarter Horse before. We had a horse picked out for every (trial) that we were going to try to claim. We stopped after the first trial because we got lucky with Alota Cartel."

Ray and Orlandini, however, are no strangers to racing at Los Alamitos. The owners have raced several Thoroughbreds at the Orange County in past seasons. On Saturday, their Carters Cartel filly will start from post number eight in the Los Alamitos Claiming Futurity.

The late May trials were contested as claiming events and horses could be claimed for a price of $12,500 each. In addition to Alota Cartel, the others finalists claimed out of the trials are Mozilla, who will race for owner Steve Mickaelian, She Pays Dividends, now owned by Gerald Kaul and Vince Smith, and Think About It, who was claimed by Gustavo De La Torre.

Trained by Jimmy Glenn, Jr. and ridden by Eulices Gomez, Mozilla posted the second fastest times after scoring a half-length victory over third fastest qualifier She Pays Dividends. The gelded won of Hawkinson has won one of two starts this season.

Trained by Vince Smith, the Mr Jess Berry filly She Pays Dividends also posted a second place finish to eventual Kindergarten Futurity winner Glitter In My Face in their racing debut on April 14.

Lisa Anderson’s Chicks On Wings won the other trial thanks to a hard fought nose decision over RP Jets Azoomen. Lin Melton will saddle the Onthewingsofglory filly, who had previously finished fourth in a trial to the Kindergarten.

The field will be completed by RP Jets Azoom Courtesy of www.losalamitos.com