Meet opens with Quarter Horse trials after absorbing entire Ruidoso season
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For the third consecutive year, the Downs at Albuquerque will host the Ruidoso Downs race meeting in New Mexico that begins on Friday. Unlike in 2024 or last year, when only part of the Ruidoso Downs meeting was held in Albuquerque, the entirety of this year’s season will be conducted at the northern New Mexico venue.
Ruidoso Downs officials announced in January that they would not race this year at the southern New Mexico track because of damage caused by repeated flooding. A massive wildfire in June 2024 caused a loss of vegetation that led to runoff from monsoonal rains in July the last two years. Ruidoso Downs raced from late May into July in 2024 and again last year.
It is not clear when live racing will next be held at Ruidoso Downs. In a statement issued in January, officials said racing at Ruidoso Downs “is not sustainable now or for many years to come.”
The Albuquerque meeting that starts on Friday consists of Quarter Horse trials for most of the first three days. The first Thoroughbred races will be held on Monday.
The meeting will have a mixed-breed format through Labor Day, Sept. 7, the day of the $3 million All American Futurity at 440 yards. The abbreviated 2025 season at Ruidoso Downs, which ended in early July, did not include Thoroughbred racing.
With the full-season move to Albuquerque this spring and summer, the track will be the base for racing in the state through the end of October. Albuquerque runs an annual late summer and early fall meeting.
The Friday and Saturday programs consist of 13 350-yard trials for the Ruidoso Futurity, which will be run on June 7. The runners with the five fastest times each day will advance to the final.
Whatdyathinkofmenow, second in the $971,955 Remington Park Oklahoma-Bred Futurity at 330 yards on April 18, is the most accomplished runner on Friday’s program. He starts in the second trial.
On Saturday, Chief Keef 123, third by a half-length in the $353,927 West Texas Futurity at Sunland Park on April 4, starts in the seventh trial. The day’s final trial includes Whyjohnnyringo, who was supplemented for $30,000 when entries were taken last week. Whyjohnnyringo was sixth in a maiden race at Remington Park on April 18.
The first seven races on Sunday are time trials for the 400-yard Ruidoso Derby on June 6. The runners with the 10 fastest times advance to the final.
Political Twist, the champion 2-year-old of 2025, starts in the fourth trial, his first race since a troubled eighth-place finish in the Los Alamitos Two Million Futurity in December. Political Twist won the 2025 Ruidoso Futurity at Ruidoso Downs and was second to King of the Tide in the All American Futurity in Albuquerque last September. King of the Tide is not entered in the Ruidoso Derby trials.
Lethal Lobo and Envestor, third and fourth in the All American Futurity, start in the first and sixth trials.
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