All American Futurity winner Kj Desparado headed to Lone Star

Kj Desparado, the winner of the $3 All American Futurity at Ruidoso Downs on Monday, may not be done for the season.

The Texas Classic Futurity at Lone Star Park, which has trials on Nov. 6 and a $1 million final on Nov. 27, is on the schedule for the Arizona-bred gelding, who recovered quickly from Monday’s 440-yard race.

“He’s very happy,” trainer Wes Giles said on Tuesday. “He acts like he’s ready to go again.”

Kj Desparado ($11.80) caught early leader Fdd Scout in the final 100 yards to win by a neck. Jess Savin Candy, the 11-10 favorite, finished fourth by 1 3/4 lengths, missing in a bid to join Special Effort from 1981 as the only horses to sweep the Ruidoso Triple Crown series for 2-year-olds. Jess Savin Candy won the Ruidoso Futurity in June and the Rainbow Futurity in July.

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Kj Desparado, who races for John and Kathy Lee and Ruben Mares, was sixth in the Ruidoso Futurity and seventh in the Rainbow Futurity. On Aug. 20, Kj Desparado qualified for the All American Futurity by winning the last of 15 time trials in 21.452 seconds, racing into an 11-mile per hour headwind, to record the fastest time of the day.

On Aug. 21, Jess Savin Candy set the fastest qualifying time of 21.187 seconds for that session, racing with a nine-mile per hour tailwind.

“People don’t realize when the wind is one direction and then the wind is the other direction that can be two lengths difference,” Giles said.

Kj Desparado was the ninth All American starter for the 61-year-old Giles, who has raced at Ruidoso since the early 2000s. Son of the legendary Utah trainer Ed Giles, Wes Giles finished second in the 2017 All American with Bigg Daddy.

Giles said winning the All American Futurity was “a relief.” He followed the thought with a hearty laugh, adding, “It’s not three or four days of disappointment.”

Kj Desparado has won 4 of 8 starts and earned $1,602,868. The All American win was worth $1.5 million.

The colt began the year at Turf Paradise, where he finished fourth in the $88,391 Arizona Quarter Racing Association Open Spring Futurity in April, proving All American winners can emerge from anywhere.

Fdd Scout and Jess Savin Candy will not race again this year.

Jess Savin Candy was vanned from the backstretch to trainer John Stinebaugh’s stable after the All American out of concern regarding a suspensory. Stinebaugh said on Tuesday that X-rays revealed no serious injury, but that the gelding will undergo further evaluation.

“He’s just beat up,” Stinebaugh said. “We’ll get him to Dallas and we’ll get him ultra-sounded. If he needs any kind of therapy, we’ll do what he needs.”

Jess Savin Candy was fractious in the gate, but started well, giving Stinebaugh hope he would win the race and the Triple Crown.

“When he broke, I thought he is on,” Stinebaugh said. “He just didn’t make it.

“I just came up a couple of yards short. He’s got brighter days ahead. He’ll get turned out until next season.”

Fdd Scout is scheduled to undergo surgery for an entrapped epiglottis, trainer Trey Wood said.

The ailment was detected after Fdd Scout won a division of the All American time trials on Aug. 21, but Wood said there was not sufficient time to conduct surgery before Labor Day.

“When you do that, you risk the opportunity of something going wrong,” he said. “It’s a little more than you want to do in two weeks.”

Fdd Scout led by a half-length midway through Monday’s final.

“I was looking for the finish line,” Wood said. “It just didn’t arrive quick enough.”