Los Alamitos Championship start of Ochoa's title drive

Ochoa has amassed four championship titles and the record for career earnings by a Quarter Horse.
He was the outstanding 2-year-old gelding and overall 2-year-old in 2011, and repeated the gelding and overall titles at 3 in 2012. Whether Ochoa can win champion aged gelding and aged champion, and even the World Champion title, at 4 depends on how he runs at Los Alamitos this fall.

A winner of 10 of 14 starts and $2,687,615, Ochoa was brought to Los Alamitos in early September with title objectives in mind. His first start of the autumn is Sunday’s $150,000 Los Alamitos Championship.

The Los Alamitos Championship, run over 440 yards, has drawn a strong field of 10, including Rylees Boy, the winner of the 2012 Champion of Champions and that year’s champion aged gelding and aged champion, and Priceless Feature, who beat Ochoa by a neck in the Remington Park Championship in Oklahoma on June. Priceless Feature has not started since the Remington Park Championship. Rylees Boy won the Los Alamitos Winter Championship in February and finished in a dead heat for second in the Go Man Go Handicap on Sept. 15.

Those horses have earned qualifying berths for the $750,000 Champion of Champions at Los Alamitos on Dec. 14. The winner of Sunday’s race receives an automatic berth. If Rylees Boy or Priceless Feature win the Los Alamitos Championship, the berth reverts to the Z. Wayne Griffin time trials on Nov. 23.
Trainer Sleepy Gilbreath would prefer to avoid those trials with Ochoa and earn a qualifying spot on Sunday. Owned by J Bar 7 Ranch, Katsy and Monte Cluck and Douglas Benson, Ochoa has started twice this year.

Ochoa’s second in the Remington Park Championship was his first start of the year. He was an easy winner of the $30,000 Mr Jet Moore Handicap at Ruidoso Downs on Aug. 4. Ochoa has thrived at Ruidoso Downs, winning the 2011 All American Futurity and the Rainbow and All American derbys in 2012 there.
Gilbreath, based in Texas, said Ochoa has been at Los Alamitos since early September.

“Things seem to be going good for him,” Gilbreath said.

Ochoa drew post 7.

Other prominent runners are Chivalry Sr, who won the 2012 Los Alamitos Championship, and Aha Moment, third in the 2012 All American Futurity.