Jessies First Down tries to strengthen championship credentials in Championship at Sunland Park

Jessies First Down will be looking to win his fourth consecutive Grade 1 race on Sunday, when he runs in the $350,000 Championship at Sunland Park – but there’s more at stake than a streak.

Jessies First Down is the reigning two-time world champion Quarter Horse, and if he were to lock up a third title for his campaign this year, he’d join an elite club. Jessies First Down would become just the third Quarter Horse to win three world champion titles, according to statistics from the American Quarter Horse Association. The first to accomplish the feat was Shue Fly, from 1941-43, and the second, Go Man Go, from 1955-57.

The Championship at Sunland is a 440-yard race and the meet’s most prestigious offering for Quarter Horses. To win the race, Jessies First Down will have to beat Major Bites, who is 5 for 6 this year, with his only loss coming by a half-length to Jessies First Down in the Grade 1 Albuquerque Fall Championship in September. Since that race, Major Bites has won two straight, including the Grade 1 Zia Park Championship over Sunday opponents Jess Bein the Hero and Valiant Rogue.

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Jessies First Down won the Championship at Sunland Park in 2016 and was placed second in last year’s running after finishing third by a half-length. He had a rocky trip in 2017.

“He got out terrible and he had to go behind horses and try to catch them,” trainer Jimmy Padgett said. “He ran a huge race, but it just wasn’t quite enough with the issues he had.”

Jessies First Down has since won three straight Grade 1 races. The races have been spaced conservatively. Jessies First Down opened his season April 28 with a two-length win in the $100,000 Leo Stakes at Remington Park. He then set a track record in the $250,000 Remington Park Invitational Championship on June 2. Jessies First Down next won the Downs at Albuquerque Fall Championship on Sept. 23.

“The spacing is mostly [because] he’s 7 years old,” Padgett said of the gelding. “He’ll be 8 the first of the year. We sat down and came up with a plan. We picked four Grade 1’s.”

Jessies First Down won the Fall Championship by a half-length under regular rider Rodrigo Vallejo, his tightest finish this year.

“It was a little closer than some of his races, but I think people underestimated the horses he ran against in there,” Padgett said.

“Rodrigo never really asked him. About three-quarters of the way down he kind of turned his stick over and flagged him a little and smooched to him, and he went on.”

Jessies First Down was a late bloomer for his breeders and owners, Ted Abrams and family. He won his maiden at the age of 4 in the $204,000 Hialeah Maturity at Hialeah in 2015.

“He’s unbelievably sound and he’s unbelievably smart,” Padgett said. “The horse takes very, very good care of himself. The horse floats across the ground, so you don’t have any issues. And, hats off to the owners to have the patience they have because he wasn’t an easy horse at 2 and 3. Even into his 4-year-old year we had a hard time with him leaving the gates like he does now. He just took some time to mature.”

It all came together at 5, when Jessies First Down won his first world championship. His success coincided with his connections getting him a special friend. Capitan, a rooster, is a constant companion for Jessies First Down.

“When he won his first world championship, he was kind of popular and we got the rooster to hang out,” Padgett said. “That rooster doesn’t let anybody up near his stall. If you just went in there in the middle of the day and nobody was here, you’d have a rooster right in the middle of your lap. He’s kind of like a guard dog. He goes wherever the horse goes.”

And, when Jessies First Down won a second world championship last year, Capitan pretty much locked up a home for life.

“The chicken ain’t going nowhere,” said Padgett with a chuckle.

Jessies First Down, if he can help it, won’t be leaving his perch, either.