Early Decision Takes Uncas Out of the Running for the Million

Uncas might be the best 2-year-old to have raced at Los Alamitos, but he isn’t going to get a chance to prove it.

Owner Spencer Childers admits he underestimated the red-hot gelding last winter when he chose not to enter him in the Dec. 21 Los Alamitos Million, the track’s biggest race for 2-year-olds. Uncas has won seven of nine starts, including three major stakes races during the meet.

“I decided he would be a pretty good one to run in some early futurity races,” said Childers, who sits on the track’s board of directors. “My thought was that if we ran him in these races early, he would be all used up by the time the Million rolls around. That could still be. It’s pretty hard running these 2-year-olds all the time.”

But clearly, Childers is kicking himself now for not paying the first $50 installment on the $2,500 entry fee.

“I wish he was in the Million,” Childers said. “I overlooked him. I underestimated him.”

Childers chose instead to enter Luva Secret, another from his fine stable of 2-year-olds, in the race. Luva Secret, however, hasn’t gained the same experience or exposure as Uncas. When the two met earlier his month, Uncas bolted to an early lead, then held off Luva Secret at the wire to win the $125,000 Sires Cup Futurity. The result was especially pleasing for Childers, because Uncas, named for a character in “The Last of the Mohicans,” came down with a 105-degree fever five days before the trials.

Luva Secret is expected to run in the trials Oct. 25 for the Nov. 8 Golden State Futurity. Trials for the Million are slated for Dec. 6. Uncas qualified Friday with the second-fastest time for the Oct. 4 Pacific Coast Quarter Horse Racing Assn. Breeders Futurity. His second-place finish ended a six-race victory streak.

“This year we had something like 29 foals,” said Childers’ wife, Florence Childers. “We’ll sell some and enter others in certain derby and futurity races.

“But we don’t enter all of them in every race. We just can’t afford to do that.”

Some entry fees can be hefty, as much as $50,000, according to track officials. Most offer monthly payment schedules. Still, horsemen like Spencer Childers, have to make calculated guesses at the beginning of each racing season to determine which horses will be capable of competing. In Uncas’ case, when the meet began at Los Alamitos in mid-April, Childers, who has earned more than $413,000 this year, went with his hunch that Luva Secret would progress faster than Uncas.

Two-year-old horses can be unpredictable, say the Childers, who have been breeding horses for 30 years on their Fresno ranch.

“You really don’t know about them when they are babies,” Florence Childers said. “You can guess at the breeding but that doesn’t really mean a thing. We have something like 10 2-year-olds this year.”

Uncas has won more than $225,000 and is an outside candidate for 1996 World Champion honors. But the way defending world champion Winalota Cash has been winning derbies, Uncas needs a victory in a big race such as the Million just to stay in the hunt. Winalota Cash, a 3-year-old, has won four major stakes this year.

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Look for Winalota Cash to run at Los Alamitos some time in mid-November, his regular jockey, Los Alamitos-based Billy Peterson, said. The goal is to send the gelding off in the Nov. 29 trials of the $300,000 Champion of Champions.

“We may run him once before the Champion of Champions just to get him used to the track,” Peterson said.

Winalota Cash continued his impressive run by winning the All-American Derby Sept. 1 at Ruidoso Downs in New Mexico, overcoming a sloppy track that was drenched by torrential rain 45 minutes before post time.

The bay gelding is only the third horse in racing history to have won the All American Futurity and the All American Derby. The Sept. 1 result marked the fourth major derby victory for Winalota Cash this year. Next up is the trials for the Texas Classic Derby, Oct. 11 at Trinity Meadows in Willow Park.

Peterson, meanwhile, continues to draw rave reviews for his handling of Winalota Cash. Former jockey Jerry Nicodemus, whose career included five victories at the All-American Derby, told QuarterWeek magazine he thought Peterson was “the most talented and versatile young rider he’s seen come along in years.”

Peterson is currently doing triple duty. He spends his mornings and early afternoons riding at the 19-day Fairplex meet in Pomona, late afternoons Friday through Monday at Los Alamitos and whatever time he has left as a stock broker trainee in Long Beach.

“It’s been pretty hectic,” he said.

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Several local riders took honors last month at the AQHA Youth Assn. Championships in Fort Worth, Texas. Heidi Osborne of Irvine, aboard her horse San Badger Glory, finished first among 41 riders in the Working Cow Horse competition. Osborne, 18, is a graduate of Woodbridge High and the daughter of former Foothill athletic director Bob Osborne. Lindsay Gunderlock of Yorba Linda took first place in the trail event and Bud Lyon of Irvine finished second in the reining competition. Stephanie Blair of Los Angeles was crowned overall champion.

Notes

A victory in the Grade 2 American Quarter Horse Assn. California Challenge Championship earlier this month earned Los Alamitos-based 3-year-old colt Meter Me Gone a spot in the $200,000 AQHA Challenge Championship Nov. 24 at Turf Paradise in Phoenix. . . Apprentice jockey Shannon Straight of Laguna Beach won her first race after 17 tries recently aboard the Arabian Khemarada. . . Jockey Roman Figueroa gained victory No. 700 aboard Final Sanction Sept. 7. . . Racing continues today, with first post at 1:15 p.m. No racing will be held Thursday. The final Monday race card will be Sept. 30. The track resumes its regular Thursday through Sunday schedule Oct. 3.