Los Alamitos: Jess You and I ends long drought in Los Alamitos Championship

LOS ALAMITOS, Calif. - The 7-year-old Quarter Horse gelding Jess You and I won the seventh Grade 1 race of his 34-race career in Sunday’s $150,000 Los Alamitos Championship, earning a berth to the $750,000 Champion of Champions on Dec. 10.

Owned by the List family’s Double Bar S Ranch and trained by Paul Jones, Jess You and I won the 2008 Champion of Champions, the year he was named champion aged gelding and overall champion aged horse.

In Sunday’s race, Jess You and I ($8.20) finished a neck in front of Divide the Cash, finishing 440 yards in 21.02 seconds. Chivalry Sr, the 2-1 favorite, finished third. Stolis Winner, the winner of the 2008 All American Futurity, finished ninth after a slow start.

Jess You and I was ridden by Cody Jensen in the Los Alamitos Championship, the gelding’s first stakes win since the Grade 1 Remington Park Championship in May 2010.

Two unplaced horses in the Los Alamitos Championship have already earned automatic berths to the Champion of Champions. Good Reason Sa, who finished fourth on Sunday, qualified by winning the Los Alamitos Championship in February. Snitcher, sixth on Sunday, qualified with a win in the Vessels Maturity in June.

Other qualifiers are Ryless Boy (Remington Park Championship), Llano Teller (All American Derby), Fovee (Mildred Vessels Handicap), and Louisiana Senator (Refrigerator Handicap at Lone Star Park).

Automatic berths are available later this fall to the winners of the Bank of America Challenge Championship at Los Alamitos on Oct. 29 and the Los Alamitos Super Derby on Nov. 6. Any remaining spots will be determined in time trials on Nov. 19.