Los Alamitos: Native Tea Rose leads Jones quintet in Charger Bar

The $100,000 Charger Bar Handicap on Sunday at Los Alamitos has five fillies and mares trained by Paul Jones. The one thing missing from the race will be the trainer himself.

Jones is spending the week in Hawaii on vacation with his family, leaving the job of saddling Check N Fetch, Im a Feature Girl, Native Tea Rose, Significant Heart, and Thisfeatureisspecial to his assistants.

“They’re all pretty good horses,” Jones said earlier this week. “Native Tea Rose is really coming on well right now.”

Owned by Abigail Kawananakoa, Native Tea Rose won the Las Damas Handicap for fillies and mares over 400 yards at Los Alamitos on Dec. 8, a key prep for the Grade 2 Charger Bar. The Charger Bar also is run over 400 yards.

Native Tea Rose has won 4 of 9 starts and earned $186,430. She was fourth in the All American Futurity at Ruidoso Downs in 2012, her stakes debut.

Three of the other Jones-trained fillies were stakes winners in 2013. Significant Heart won the Pacific Coast Quarter Horse Racing Association Breeders’ Derby in October. Check N Fetch won the Mildred Vessels Handicap in September. Thisfeatureisspecial won the California Distaff Challenge Championship in August, her first start since finishing second by a head in the Charger Bar Handicap last January.

Check N Fetch and Significant Heart were fifth and 10th, respectively, in the $750,000 Champion of Champions against the nation’s top males at Los Alamitos on Dec. 14. Significant Heart was bumped at the start of the Champion of Champions, losing all chance. She won five of her first six starts of 2013 prior to that race.

Of the other four fillies and mares in the race, Juan Aleman trains two – Flame N Flash, who won the 2012 Mildred Vessels Handicap, and Shanachee, a minor stakes winner Nov. 9. Flame N Flash was the even-money favorite in the Las Damas and finished third, beaten a half-length.

Shez Jess Toxic, second in the Las Damas, and Curlie Cue, a minor stakes winner at Los Alamitos in 2012, are the other starters. Shez Jess Toxic has won 5 of 16 starts and earned $207,607 for owner-trainer Dean Frey. In 2013, Shez Jess Toxic was fourth in the Charger Bar Handicap.