Los Alamitos: Allred sends out two nice winners on California Champions Night

The man who runs Los Alamitos had some of the fastest horses running at Los Alamitos last Saturday.

Ed Allred, the track’s owner and one of the nation’s most prominent Quarter Horse owners and breeders, won two of the three six-figure stakes on the California Champions Night last weekend.

Up for It, a 2-year-old filly by first-crop sire Kiddy Up, won the $380,000 Governor’s Cup Futurity for 2-year-olds. In the preceding race, Check My Thoughts, the winner of two Grade 1 derbies in 2012, won his first race of 2013 in the $100,000 Spencer Childers Championship for older horses.

Both Up for It and Check My Thoughts are being aimed for major races in the fall.

Up for It is nominated for the Pacific Coast Quarter Horse Racing Association Breeders’ Futurity in October, but is more likely to start in time trials for the Golden State Million Futurity in October. The final is Nov. 3.

“She loves to run,” said winning trainer Scott Willoughby. “This filly has a huge heart and is a big finisher.”

Willoughby and Allred said there are only eight foals by Kiddy Up racing this year, with considerably more on the way for the 2014 racing season. Willoughby said the young sire has massive potential.

“All of the Kiddy Ups I have are all intelligent,” he said.

Check My Thoughts won the Golden State and Southern California derbies last year. He was a troubled fifth in the Los Alamitos Winter Championship in February, and was given a break following that race. The 4-year-old gelding was entered in the Spencer Childers Championship despite not training well earlier this summer.

“He fell apart,” trainer James Glenn Jr. said. “He lost weight. I couldn’t get him to come back around.”

Glenn said that Check My Thoughts showed progress after working 350 yards from the gate on July 2.

The win has left Allred and Glenn ready to try Check My Thoughts in the Go Man Go Handicap on Sept. 15.

“He can be a Champion of Champions horse,” Allred said, referring to the $750,000 race on Dec. 14.

Scoop of Sunshine won Saturday’s $181,500 Governor’s Cup Derby for Double Bar S Ranch and trainer Paul Jones. A 3-year-old filly, Scoop of Sunshine is a candidate for the Los Alamitos Super Derby, which has trials on Oct. 12 and a final on Nov. 2.