Powerful Favorite, Flash and Roll meet in Los Alamitos Super Derby

Powerful Favorite, who has won his last seven starts, will meet champion filly Flash and Roll in the Grade 1, $1,009,650 Super Derby for Quarter Horses on Sunday night at Los Alamitos.

The 400-yard race for 3-year-olds rewards its winner with a provisional berth into the track’s Grade 1, $600,000 Champions of Champions on Dec. 14.

Powerful Favorite has gone 7 for 7 this year, with all of those wins coming at Los Alamitos. His latest was a length score in his Oct. 19 trial for the Super Derby. Powerful Favorite is bidding to become both a millionaire and the second horse since Moonist to win four derbies at Los Alamitos, according to track publicity. Powerful Favorite captured the Grade 1 Los Alamitos Winter Derby in February, the Grade 3 El Primero Del Ano Derby in March, and the Governor’s Cup Derby in July.

A win Sunday would also see Powerful Favorite tie a local record held by Dashing Folly, who went 8 for 8 at Los Alamitos in 1996. Powerful Favorite races for Rosenthal Ranch. He will break from post 7 under Eduardo Nicasio, who has the mount for trainer Chris O’Dell.

Flash and Roll was the fastest qualifier for the Super Derby. She won her Oct. 19 trial by a length, while covering 400 yards on a fast track in 19.66 seconds. (Powerful Favorite won his trial in the third-fastest time of 19.76.) The start was Flash and Roll's first of the year at Los Alamitos, where last season she captured the Grade 1 Two Million Futurity and Grade 1 Golden State Million Futurity and was voted champion 2-year-old filly and champion 2-year-old overall by the American Quarter Horse Association.

If she were to win the Super Derby, Flash and Roll would become the first horse to sweep the Two Million, Golden State Million and Super Derby, according to the publicity department at Los Alamitos. She is unbeaten over the local strip, going 5-for-5 at the track between last year and 2019.

Flash and Roll, an earner of $1.2 million, will break from post 5. Cody Jensen has the mount for Scott Bryant and trainer Justin Joiner.

Apollitical Pence, winner of the Heritage Place Derby at Remington Park, was second to Flash and Roll in his Super Derby trial, covering the distance in 19.81. He will break from post 8. The second fastest qualifier for the Super Derby is Symbol of Faith, who won her trial by a neck in 19.75.

The winner on Sunday will earn a check of $424,053. First post for the eight-race card is is 5:25 p.m. Pacific.