LOS ALAMITOS, CA—FEBRUARY 7, 2017—Live nighttime Quarter Horse and Thoroughbred racing returns to Los Alamitos Race Course with an eight-race program on Friday, February 10 following a brief one-week hiatus during Super Bowl weekend.

The Friday night card starts at 7 p.m. and will be headed by $15,000 Flare For Toby Handicap for fillies and mares at 330 yards, which is scheduled as the eighth and final event on the card.

The weekend’s action will be highlighted by Saturday’s Grade 1 Los Alamitos Winter Derby at 400 yards. EG High Desert Farms’ Jess Hawk will head the Winter Derby after posting the fastest qualifying time in the trials three weeks ago. The Grade 1 Los Alamitos Winter Championship, meanwhile, will be held a week from tonight on Friday, February 17.

Honored as the Pacific Coast Quarter Horse Owner of the Year in 2016, a href='default.asp?section=9&farm=16'>EG High Desert Farms will also have one of their star runners in action in Friday’s Flare For Toby, as their talented mare Jess Ravin will top the marquee. To be ridden by Jesus Rios Ayala for trainer Yanet Rodriguez, Jess Ravin has been assigned the highweight of 125 pounds for this race. She’ll come into this race after a superb 2016 campaign, in which she posted three stakes wins and a pair of top three finishes in graded derbies.

Jess Ravin, an Oklahoma-bred mare by Corona Cartel, was second to multiple stakes winner Jess Good Reason in the La Primera Del Ano Derby and third to Rite Regal, also a multiple derby winner, in the Golden State Derby last year. Jess Ravin enjoyed lots of triumphs as well, winning the La Pacifica, Vandy’s Flash and Las Damas handicaps. She’ll be making her first start since finishing out of the money in the Grade 1 Charger Bar Handicap on January 8.

Juan Jose Romo, Jr.’s First N Final finished third in last year’s La Primera and most recently won her first stakes race when taking the Cypress Handicap on January 20. Trained by Valentin Zamudio, the Favorite Cartel mare also ran third in the AQHA Members Plus Stakes last fall. Jairo Rangel, winner of the 2016 Val Tonks Award as the meet’s top up and coming young rider, will be aboard First N Final.

The field will also feature recent allowance winner Deceptive, the stakes placed Summer Dynasty, All Right Now and Bring Me Home.

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The Flare For Toby is named in honor of the Dallas Blakley-Texas bred mare, which went to post 51 times during her seven-year racing career. A winner of 12 races and $523,204, the Frisco Flare mare captured six stakes races at Los Alamitos. Purchased privately by Ed Allred from Blakley, Flare For Toby won the 2000 and 2001 Grade 1 Mildred Vessels Memorial Handicap and the 2002 Grade 1 Charger Bar Handicap. She also won the Grade 2 Las Damas Handicap in 2001 and the 1999 Grade 3 Miss Princess Handicap.

Courtesy of www.losalamitos.com.