Be a Bono bids for third straight Grade 1 in Go Man Go Handicap

Be a Bono, the 2004 Quarter Horse world champion, tries to take another step toward a second world title when he goes for his third straight Grade 1 win in the $100,000 Go Man Go Handicap at Los Alamitos on Saturday night.

Be a Bono is in championship form as a 5-year-old with Grade 1 wins in the Vessels Maturity and the Spencer Childers California Breeders Championship in his two most recent starts. He won the Vessels Maturity for the second straight year when he scored by 1 1/2 lengths, and then took the Childers for the third consecutive year when he was a one-length winner on July 29, his most recent start.

In the Childers, Be a Bono lowered his own stakes record with a 19.39-second time for 400 yards, surpassing the stakes record of 19.48 seconds that he set a year ago.

Be a Bono returned this summer after innovative surgery on his right knee. After finishing sixth in the Los Alamitos Championship last Oct. 15, he had stem cells removed from behind his tail and then injected into his knee to aid regeneration of the knee's bone and cartilage.

Gold Medal Jess finds his best form after a few races, according to trainer Bret Vickery, so he could be rounding into winning form after three starts this summer, including a troubled fourth in the California Challenge last time out. Last winter he capped six starts in four months with a half-length win in the Grade 1 Los Alamitos Winter Championship.

The 7-year-old Catchmeinyourdreams is looking for his first 2006 stakes win after finishing second to Be a Bono in the Childers and second to Apollitical Time's near track record in the California Challenge. He was three-quarters of a length behind Apollitical Time's 21.18-second mark for 440 yards, which was just .01 of a second off Dash for Cash's Los Alamitos track record.

The three-time defending champion aged gelding Catchmeinyourdreams, who has $988,717 in earnings, will surpass the $1 million mark with a first- or second-place finish.

The Go Man Go Invitational Handicap winner receives a berth in the Grade 1, $600,000 Champion of Champions on Dec. 9. Be a Bono already has a Champion of Champions invitation for winning the Vessels Maturity, while Gold Medal Jess has a berth in the 440-yard stakes by virtue of his Winter Championship victory.

Takin on the Cash euthanized

Champion and leading sire Takin on the Cash, 18, was euthanized on Sept. 6 due to laminitis.

Takin on the Cash won eight stakes, including three Grade 1 futurities, and was named the 1990 champion 2-year-old colt and 1991 champion 3-year-old. A son of Dash for Cash, he won 13 of 26 starts and $661,747.

From 12 crops to race, Takin on the Cash sired the earners of more than $12.7 million and 61 stakes winners, including Grade 1 All American Futurity winner A Delightful Dasher.