Winner of last year's Brad McKinzie Winter Championship, London Toby, will be entered again in the this year's trials at Los Alamitos on Sunday.

© Los Alamitos

LOS ALAMITOS, CA–JANUARY 24, 2025–Ed Allred’s London Toby, the winner of the 2024 Brad McKinzie Los Alamitos Winter Championship, and Guns Up Racing’s Jess Good Wine, the runner-up in last year’s Grade 1 Champion of Champions, are among the top aged horses that will be in action in Sunday’s trials to this year’s $135,750 Brad McKinzie at Los Alamitos.

There are 11 older runners in the trials, so only one will not advance to the 400-yard final on Sunday, February 16. That means that the trainers of many of the top names in these trials will be looking to fine-tune their stars while having them take another big step towards peak performance in the Brad McKinzie final in three weeks. 

In addition to the first-place purse of $57,015, the winner of the Brad McKinzie will earn the first presumptive berth to the Grade 1 Champion of Champions to be held in December.

London Toby held the honor of being the Brad McKinzie winner in 2024 when he shrugged off being bumped from both sides at the start and then outdueled EG High Desert Farms’ Marcelo and Ed and Von Zae McNelis’ Scoops Dynasty for the win. The Scott Willoughby trainee will now begin his quest towards becoming only the third horse to win back-to-back runnings of this race.

Apollitical Pence did it in 2022 and 2023, and BH Lisas Boy repeated it in 2018 after winning the 2017 running. Gabriel Lara will ride London Toby from the rail in post number seven, which is the opening trial.

Trained by Heath Taylor, Jess Good Wine will face London Toby in the opening heat after a superb Los Alamitos debut. In his first local start, Jess Good Wine led the Champion of Champions right from the start from post two, and it took a monster effort by Empressum from the outside post 10 to keep him from winning the 440-yard classic.

A winner of four stakes races in his other four starts of 2024, Jess Good Wine has been in Southern California since November 20th and should feel right at home at Los Alamitos as he begins his 5-year-old season. Bryan Candanosa will ride him post number two.

Monty Arrossa will saddle a pair of past Los Alamitos Winter Derby winners in Sunday’s trials. The previously mentioned Scoops Dynasty won the Winter Derby in 2022 and has since won three other stakes races, including the 2023 Go Man Go Handicap, and raced in each of the last two Champion of Champions. He’ll take on London Toby and Jess Good Wine in the first trial. B

ill Price’s BP Cartel Policy, who won the Winter Derby last year and competed in the 2024 Champion of Champions, will headline the second trial in race number eight.

The other standouts in the opening trial are Mauro Zaborowsky’s Edberg Verde, the Brazilian star who ran third in both the Grade 1 Robert Boniface Los Alamitos Invitational Championship and in the Go Man Go, and Reliance Ranches’ Unrelentless, who won the Town Policy Handicap and A Ransom Handicap in his two starts here last year.                  

In addition to BP First Policy, the second trial will also feature Grade 1 stakes-placed runners Kevins Wise Corona and Jess Being A Friend. In the other heat, they will be joined by Tempting Barbie, Straight And True, and Beduinos Favorite.

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