Los Alamitos: Ochoa, Last to Fire start from inside posts in Champion of Champions

CYPRESS, Calif. – James Lackey has a unique perspective on Ochoa’s presence in Saturday’s $750,000 Champion of Champions at Los Alamitos.

As assistant trainer to Sleepy Gilbreath, Lackey has spent the last few months in Southern California overseeing Ochoa’s campaign for the Champion of Champions. It is a race Lackey knows how to win. He rode Cash Rate to a victory in 1985, one of his career highlights as a jockey.

“It’s one of the most historic and prestigious races in Quarter Horse racing,” Lackey said Wednesday. ”It’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing for a lot of people.”

Ochoa, a 4-year-old gelding, is Quarter Horse racing’s all-time leading money winner, with earnings of $2,762,615. He achieved that status by winning races such as the $2.4 million All American Futurity in 2011 and the $2.2 million All American Derby in 2012, the richest races for those age groups in those years. The Champion of Champions is Quarter Horse racing’s richest race for older horses.

The title of World Champion Running Quarter Horse is at stake in the 440-yard race, which drew a strong field of 10. Ochoa and Last to Fire, who have the inside two post positions, can claim that title with a win Saturday.

Both were outstanding winning their last starts – Last to Fire in the Go Man Go Handicap over 400 yards on Sept. 15 and Ochoa in the Los Alamitos Invitational on Oct. 13. Last to Fire is expected to be a slight favorite, but Lackey said that Ochoa is approaching the race in outstanding condition.

“We think we’ve got him back to where he was right before the Invitational,” Lackey said Wednesday. “We put a light, controlled work in him and sharpened him up a little bit. We’re in the keep-safe mode. He went to the track for the last time this morning.

“He stood in the gate, that’s the routine for him, and we jogged and galloped him. We let him spend some time on the track. He knows the routine.”

Lackey said an outside draw would have been preferred, “but he’s a professional horse and he’ll give it what he’s got.”

Last to Fire has won his last three starts, a span that includes the Vessels Maturity in July. A 4-year-old, Last to Fire drew the inside in the Vessels, giving trainer Jose de la Torre confidence for Saturday.

“That tells me the horse is comfortable racing from there,” de la Torre said. “He’s beaten most of these horses already. The only one [he hasn’t] is Ochoa, and he’s right next to us.”

The Champion of Champions will be Last to Fire’s first start over 440 yards, a point that does not concern de la Torre.

“He likes to run fresh and he’s proven he can run fresh,” he said. “I think the longer the race, the more he’ll beat them.”

The field includes the major 2013 stakes winners Feature Hero, Matabari, Priceless Feature, Vodka With Ice, and Rylees Boy, who won the 2012 Champion of Champions.

Rylees Boy starts from the outside, an ideal draw, according to trainer Paul Jones.

“He had the 10-hole last year,” Jones said. “He could be a big factor.”

Thoroughbred officials named

Los Alamitos has appointed Robert Moreno as director of Thoroughbred racing for the track’s two meetings in July and December of 2014, track consultant Brad McKinzie said Wednesday.

Moreno is currently a racing official on the Southern California Thoroughbred circuit and was racing secretary for the Sonoma County Fair meeting in Santa Rosa in 2014.

Moreno will be joined in executive positions for the 2014 meetings by Tony Allevato, who has been named director of Thoroughbred marketing, and Jay Slender, who will be starter at the Thoroughbred meetings.

Slender is currently the starter at Santa Anita and has worked at Los Alamitos in the past.

Allevato has an extensive history in television production in Southern California Thoroughbred racing as the director of broadcasting at Hollywood Park in the 1990s and as an executive vice president at TVG from its inception in 1998 until 2012.

Monday, Los Alamitos received approval from the Cypress City Council to expand its racetrack from its current five-eighths mile configuration to a mile. Tree removal took place Tuesday and Wednesday on the property for the expansion, which was previously a golf course.

This Monday, the earth-moving phase will begin. The remodeled racetrack is scheduled to open Jan. 22.