Intriguing youth vs. experience matchup in Champion of Champions

CYPRESS, Calif. – BH Lisas Boy will start in Saturday’s $600,000 Champion of Champions on the strength of a three-race winning streak, all in stakes, since August.

This will be the 7-year-old gelding’s third consecutive appearance in the year-end championship race for Quarter Horses at Los Alamitos. BH Lisas Boy was fifth in 2017 and third last year.

“I keep thinking he would quit us by now,” said Bill Hoburg, the owner, trainer, and breeder of BH Lisas Boy. “He seems to be an iron horse. He loves his job.”

BH Lisas Boy won the California Challenge Championship in August, the Go Man Go Handicap on Sept. 1, and the Los Alamitos Championship on Oct. 13. He is the leading older male at Los Alamitos this year.

His biggest foe Saturday is a filly less than half his age. Flash and Roll, 3, is unbeaten in six starts at Los Alamitos, including three major stakes wins in the last 13 months. Away from Los Alamitos, she has won 4 of 7 starts, but no stakes.

Flash and Roll won the $1,009,650 Los Alamitos Super Derby at 400 yards on Nov. 10, a victory that may result in her being a slight favorite over BH Lisas Boy in Saturday’s race at 440 yards.

BH Lisas Boy will break from post 2, two positions to the inside of Flash and Roll, who will be making her first start against older horses in the Champion of Champions. The distance should not be an issue for Flash and Roll, who races for Scott Bryant and is trained by Justin Joiner.

Flash and Roll won a division of the All American Derby trials at 440 yards at Ruidoso Downs in August, but was a troubled ninth in the final on Sept. 1. She arrived at Los Alamitos a few weeks later.

“As soon as I unloaded her off the trailer, she seemed happy,” Joiner said.

The field of 10 includes Jesstacartel, Zoomin for Spuds, and He Looks Hot, who were second, fourth, and sixth in the 2018 Champion of Champions behind Bodacious Eagle, who is now retired. Zoomin for Spuds won the 2016 Champion of Champions and finished third in 2017.

Among the other runners, Hotstepper won the 2018 All American Derby and Texas Classic Derby at Lone Star Park for trainer Sleepy Gilbreath. Hotstepper won a qualifying trial for the Champion of Champions on Nov. 17, ending a three-race losing streak much to the relief of trainer Paul Jones.

“I was starting to doubt if I could get him to run like Sleepy did,” Jones said Wednesday. “He came around and ran to his ability.”

Hotstepper will start from post 3 in the Champion of Champions. He is surrounded by good company.