Lots at stake opening week

There is arguably no race meeting in the United States that begins with the same intensity as the Ruidoso Downs season in New Mexico.

From the first race on Friday’s opening day through the final race on Sunday, every runner will be on the clock. The 15-race programs on Friday and Saturday are 350-yard time trials for the $1 million Ruidoso Futurity on June 12. The five fastest finishers each day advance to the final. The 10 races on Sunday are 400-yard trials for the $850,000 Ruidoso Derby on June 11, with the 10 fastest finishers earning berths in the final.

The Ruidoso Derby and Futurity are the first races in the track’s Triple Crown for 2- and 3-year-olds. The series continues with the Rainbow

Derby and Futurity on July 24-25 and the All American Derby and Futurity on Sept. 5-6. The $3 million All American Futurity is Quarter Horse racing’s richest and most famous race.

Ruidoso Downs has a mixed meeting of Thoroughbreds and Quarter Horses that runs through Labor Day Sept. 5, racing largely on a Fridaythrough-Sunday basis. There is racing on Monday this weekend.

The richest Thoroughbred races of the meeting are three stakes for 2-year-old statebreds with estimated purses of $125,000 – the Mountain Top Futurity at five furlongs on July 3, and the Rio Grande Senor Futurity for colts and geldings and Rio Grande Senorita Futurity for fillies. Those races are run at 5 1/2 furlongs on Aug. 29.

Sunday’s program will be the first starts of 2022 for Jess Savin Candy, the winner of the Ruidoso and Rainbow futurities in 2021. Jess Savin Candy was fourth in the All American Futurity last September to KJ Desparado, missing a chance to sweep the Triple Crown. Jess Savin Candy emerged from the race with a leg injury that required surgery.

Trained by John Stinebaugh for the Dutch Masters partnership of Jim Streelman and Bill Dale, Jess Savin Candy starts in the 10th trial for the Ruidoso Derby.

KJ Desparado won the Texas Classic Futurity at Lone Star Park last November, but was found to have tested positive for the muscle relaxant methocarbamol in a post-race test taken after a time trial win for the Texas Classic Futurity earlier that month.

KJ Desparado starts in Sunday’s eighth time trial.

With five finalists from the futurity trials advancing to the final, there is little margin for error. Two of the most prominent starters – Cyber Attack and PYC Avenue – were supplemented for $30,000 earlier this month.

Cyber Attack, owned by Connie Rosenthal and trained by Chris O’Dell, was listed as sold for $400,000, the third most expensive hip of the Ruidoso yearling sale last September. A first-time starter, Cyber Attack starts in Friday’s third trial.

PYC Avenue is unbeaten in three starts, including the $973,665 Remington Park Oklahoma-Bred Futurity at 330 yards on April 16 for owner Josefina Guzman and trainer Santos Carrizales Jr. PYC Avenue starts in Saturday’s 10th trial.