Los Alamitos will host seven stakes races for California Breeders Champions Night on Saturday, including the richest race of the night, $275,000 Governor's Cup Futurity, led by top qualifier Favorite Jesshawk.

© Amber Mendez/Los Alamitos

LOS ALAMITOS, CA–JULY 25, 2024–A full night of Cal-bred stakes racing action led by the Governor’s Cup Futurity and Governor’s Cup Derby will headline the 25th edition of California Breeders Champions Night on Saturday at Los Alamitos. The Champions Night program will be held on Saturday night, with every race on the nine-race card a Quarter Horse race, including seven stakes for Cal-breds at the Orange County oval.

The richest race of the night is the $275,000 Governor’s Cup Futurity led by EG High Desert Farms’ top qualifier Favorite Jesshawk. The homebred colt is by the freshman stallion A Mere Felix, a half-brother to Grade 1 Los Alamitos Winter Derby winner A Mere Chocolate. A stakes winner, A Mere Felix, stands at EG High Desert Farms.

Favorite Jesshawk will look to give EG High Desert Farms a second victory in this race and the first since Magic Show Czech won the 2007 running. Favorite Jesshawk has won two of his first four starts.

The field will also feature six juveniles sired by the great stallion Favorite Cartel, led by trial winners Naïve and Malynche. Mike Casselman, who trained last year’s Governor’s Cup Futurity winner You See That, will look to make it two in a row when he sends Navie and Competent in this year’s futurity.

In the $170,000 Governor’s Cup Derby, Casselman will saddle a talented duo in fastest qualifier Winners Share and the previously mentioned You See That, who’ll look to sweep the Governor’s Cup series following last year’s futurity win.

Kolleen Ledgerwood’s Wilde Thing, second in the 2023 Governor’s Cup Futurity, will also be featured in the Derby, with experienced stakes runners Checkn Cartel, Boardwalk, Optical Illusion, and Change Happens being some of the other top contenders in the race.

The Restricted Grade 1 $100,000 Spencer Childers California Breeders Championship Handicap will feature Ed Allred’s outstanding London Toby as he looks to defend his title in this race. London Toby will look to become the first runner to successfully defend his Spencer Childers title since 2004 World Champion Be A Bono won three straight runnings from 2004 through 2006.

The Spencer Childers will also feature graded stakes winners You Can Run, winner of the Grade 1 Go Man Go Handicap in 2021, and Cattail Cove, the great veteran of 46 races, just about all of them at the stakes level.

Now owned and trained by Valentin Zamudio, Terrific Phoenix has been facing top runners this year, winning the Moonist Stakes on March 17 and then racing in the $40,000 Kaweah Bar Handicap, the $25,000 Be A Bono Stakes and the $150,000 Vessels Maturity.

Juniors Quarter Horse, Inc.’s Always A Chance, the winner of the Sgt Pepper Feature Handicap last year and 2023 Grade 2 Southern California Derby runner-up Required First, will complete the field.

Featuring a richer purse in 2024, the $50,000 Rolling A Ranch Matron Stakes will be headed by 2022 Governor’s Cup Futurity winner Frivolous, trained by Felix Gonzalez, and 2022 Debutante winner Nymphette, owned by Allred.

Seven distaffers are racing in the Rolling A Ranch with Parsons Ranch’s Phoebes Baby Girl, who ran in the Governor’s Cup Derby last year, and Allred’s Remember Her, who was second in the California Breeders Debutante last year, among the others in this 350-yard race. The purse for the Rolling A Ranch Matron Stakes increased 25% this year, up from $40,000 last year.

Sophomore fillies will be in action in the $30,000 Debutante with Ledgerwood’s Cowgirl Upp, who was among the top qualifiers to the PCQHRA Breeders Futurity last year, making her 2024 debut in this race. Parsons Family Limited Partnership’s Rockin With Energy, the runner-up in last year’s Ed Burke Million and a finalist in the Grade 1 Los Alamitos Winter Derby in February, is among the other big names in the Debutante.

Sophomore males will be in the spotlight in the $30,000 Jens List Stakes with Parsons Family Limited Partnership’s Favorite Nuke, third in the El Primero Del Ano Derby this year, and Allred’s recent allowance winner Cheater the headliners.

The card will also feature a high-level Claiming Stakes event led by Allred’s conditioned allowance winner, Straight And True, and Erasmo Hernandez’s recent $16,000 claiming level winner, Im Delighted. A pair of solid straightaway races for juveniles will complete the card, with the top names being the highly regarded Bull Market, who was third in a tough Robert Adair Kindergarten Futurity trial, and Personal Attack, a full-brother to AQHA champion colt and two-time Los Alamitos million-dollar race winner Trane Station V.