Miss Royal Hawk, a horse that won its trials race for the Firecracker Futurity at Grants Pass Downs but finished seventh in the big July 4 race, with jockey Jaime Lopez, had the top time among the 10 horses that made the Far West Futurity Finals from its qualifying races on Sun., Sept. 20.
Miss Royal Hawk ran the 400 yards, 100 more than the Firecracker’s associated races in the summer, in 19.828 seconds, far ahead of second qualifier Fast Fly, the Firecracker champion with jockey Oscar Peinado, in 19.006.
Miss Royal Hawk won the sixth race, the first of four qualifying races on the 20th, while Fast Fly, owned by Abelardo Hernandez and trained by Lorenzo Campos, won the eighth race.
Four horses in the finals race, on the final weekend of Grants Pass Downs’s fall season, on Mon., Oct. 12, came from the seventh race, won by Big Kixx Cartel, with Peinado aboard. There is an $82,000 purse, slightly lower than the $90,000 purse for the 2024 Far West Futurity. The Firecracker Futurity, for two-year-olds on July 4, carried a $95,000 purse.
The Far West Futurity Consolation Finals, for the 11th through 20th fastest horses, will vie for a $15,000 purse.
The 2026 Autumn Derby, for three-year-old quarterhorses, is also scheduled for the final weekend, on Sun., Oct. 11. The Autumn Derby qualifying races are next weekend, Sept. 27-28.
The qualifiers for the Far West Futurity were run before a crowd of 3.415, a huge turnout for the second weekend of the Grants Pass Downs fall season.
“I think a lot of them were here for the Dino races, but that was cute! That was fun,” Leah Nelson, who, with her husband David, is among the top quarterhorse owners in the Northwest. She spotted that the driver of the tractor working the track surface used to ride horses for the Nelsons “way back, he and his brother.”
Nelson said quarterhorse racing in the Northwest is surging.
“In the whole Northwest, we’re doing very well,” she said. “We have a lot of young Mexican gentlemen and women that are getting horses and winning, and they’re really helping our magnitude of horses.
“The thoroughbreds are having trouble filling in the spring and the races in the summer when we run at Tillamook, Prineville, and Union, so we’re filling a lot of those races, which is really good for our people.”
There were 50 quarterhorses entered for the Firecracker Futurity in the summer, and 37 raced for spots in the Far West Futurity on Sept. 20.
Peinado, who was flown up from Southern California to ride in two races, just as Ruben Lozano was to ride on Fast Fly to victory in the Firecracker Futurity, won two races in the Sunday program, as did Blake Nunnally and Adrian Castellanos.
Alex M. Cruz cruised to the top of the jockey leaderboard through the second week of the five-weekend meet, with four wins on Mon., Sept. 21. giving him six wins for the season. Jose Elias Rodriguez and Nunnally each have four wins.
Jorge Rosales is the meet’s top trainer through two weekends with three wins in 10 starts, and the group of Gene Heredia, Eliesid Flores, and Eliana Thompson has won two races, as has Utah horse owner Dustie Crystal.
Reach reporter Brian Mortensen at [email protected] or 541-582-1707.