LOS ALAMITOS, CA—MAY 4, 2017—Bill Hoburg’s BH Lisas Boy, which earned a berth to the $750,000 Champion of Champions thanks to his victory in the Grade 1 Los Alamitos Winter Championship in his last start, returns to action to face a strong group of older runners in the Grade 3 $25,000 Kaweah Bar Handicap at Sunday at Los Alamitos.

Trained by John Cooper, BH Lisas Boy won the Winter Championship by a half-length over reigning Champion of Champions winner Zoomin For Spuds. BH Lisas Boy victory in the February 19 event automatically qualified him to race in Quarter Horse racing’s most prestigious and richest race for older horses, the Champion of Champions to be held here on Saturday, December 16. 

BH Lisas Boy will enter the Kaweah Bar after posting a 350-yard turn and work in :18.20 on April 20. Cesar De Alba will ride the 5-year-old son of Mighty Invictus from post one.

"He’s training great," Cooper said. "I wish we could have run him once before this race, but we gave him a workout and he looked good. This might be my last start with the horse so it would be nice to go out on a winning note."

Hoburg bred BH Lisas Boy and also trains the multiple Grade 1 winner. When Hoburg decided to go back home for the winter, he asked ‘Coopie’ if he could take care of his Idaho-bred gelding until his return.

"Bill has some (2-year-olds) that will be coming with him," Cooper added. "Once Bill’s here, the horse will be going back to him."

Van Amburghs and Nichols’ Mr PYC To You and Ed Allred’s He Looks Hot, the fourth and fifth place finishers, respectively, in the Winter Championship get another chance to face BH Lisas Boy. Mr Pyc To You posted a 1 1/4 length allowance win on March 24, while He Looks Hot will be racing for the first time since the Winter Championship.

Jesus Padilla’s El Remalcable, a winner in his last four starts, and Ozzy Network Inc’s Winners Cool Chick will complete the field to this 350-yard race. 

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  The Kaweah Bar Handicap honors one of racing's great sprinters and a 1998 AQHA Hall of Fame inductee. A 1966 palomino gelding, Kaweah Bar was a two-time world champion and his 18 stakes wins at Los Alamitos remain a track record, which he shares with Charger Bar.    

Sired by Alamitos Bar out of the Go Man Go mare Angie Miss, Kaweah Bar was known as much for his unpredictable race antics as for his speed. As a 2-year-old, he won the 1968 Juvenile over the James Dreyer-ridden Witch Chic, giving him his sixth win in a row.

By career numbers alone, Kaweah Bar is arguably one of the most prolific horses ever in Quarter Horse racing. Los Alamitos. Kaweah Bar made 114 career starts, winning 38 races. Only 10 horses in Quarter Horse racing history have ever won more races than the "Palomino Flash". Bred by Hadan Livestock Co and owned by Bob Tanner and George Chittick, Kaweah Bar earned $386,516. In addition to his 18 local stakes wins, Kaweah Bar picked up three other stakes win.  - 21 of those total at the stakes level.

Among his other career highlights, the C.R. Knight-trained and Bobby Adair-ridden Kaweah Bar won the 1968 Ed Burke Memorial Futurity, Juvenile Stakes and Leo Handicap; the Los Alamitos Derby and Miss Princess Invitational in 1969; and the 1970 and '72 Los Alamitos Championship. Kaweah Bar won this race in 1972 when it was still known as the Inaugural Handicap. It became the Kaweah Bar in 1980.

Courtesy of www.losalamitos.com.