Sky Promise, with three straight stakes wins, targets Zia Park Derby

Sky Promise has likely put himself in the running for a Sovereign Award by becoming the first horse to sweep Western Canada’s three major derbies this past August and September. His next move comes Wednesday in New Mexico, where he goes for his fourth straight stakes win in the $250,000 Zia Park Derby.

The Zia Derby anchors the $1 million Land of Enchantment program. The 10-race card features seven stakes for Thoroughbreds and includes the $250,000 Zia Park Oaks and the $150,000 Zia Park Championship.

The finalists for various Sovereign Awards – including those in the category of champion 3-year-old male - will be announced in February, according to a representative of The Jockey Club of Canada. Sky Promise has made three starts in the country, winning the $75,000 Manitoba Derby on Aug. 6 at Assiniboia Downs, the Grade 3, $200,000 Canadian Derby on Aug. 25 at Northlands Park, and the Grade 3, $150,000 British Columbia Derby in his last start, Sept. 8 at Hastings.

“We had a plan that if he came out of the B.C. Derby well, we’d give him a little bit of a break, then go to Zia,” trainer Robertino Diodoro said. “Touch wood, everything is falling into place.”

Sky Promise has been working at Turf Paradise in preparation for the Zia Park Derby; one of his recent drills was a bullet five-eighths in 59 seconds Wednesday. Diodoro said the horse will ship Monday to Zia. Rico Walcott, who has ridden Sky Promise in his last three starts, has the mount from post 7. The 1 1/16-mile race drew nine head when entries were taken Tuesday.

Sky Promise is unbeaten for the partnership of Rick Wiest, Clayton Wiest, Tim Rollingson, and Norm Tremblay. The group claimed the son of Sky Mesa for $40,000 on June 30, out of a turf route at Churchill Downs in which he finished a close fifth. Cody Autrey, a former trainer now working as a bloodstock advisor, told Diodoro he thought the horse would be effective on dirt – the surface over which Sky Promise registered his three wins in Canada.

“I have to give credit to Cody Autrey,” Diodoro said. “He’s the one who picked the horse out.”

The decision to target the races in Western Canada was an easy one to make with the ownership, Diodoro said.

“I’ve trained for them all for quite a few years and they’re all Canadians,” Diodoro said. “We’re all from Alberta. They’re close friends. A really good group.”

There was one additional reason to head north, Diodoro said.

“This was the last Canadian Derby at Northlands,” he said. “That gave us a little more incentive to run in it this year. It’s home for all of us. It’s always a race that a guy wants to win, a prestigious race.”

Sky Promise comes a year after the ownership group raced Chief Know It All, the winner of the Grade 3 Canadian Derby and Grade 3 B.C. Derby in 2017 who later ran third in the Zia Park Derby.

Diodoro won the Zia Derby in 2011 with First Strike.

New officials at Sunland

Sunland Park in New Mexico has named Gerald Richards as racing secretary for the 75-date mixed meet for Thoroughbreds and Quarter Horses that opens later than usual this year, on Dec. 28. Richards joins the track from the Downs at Albuquerque, where for the past two years he has served as racing secretary, according to a release from Sunland. Richards is a former chart caller and trainer and is a resident of New Mexico.

Johnnie Jamison has been named track superintendent and head starter for Sunland. He has started more than 20,000 races and installed the track surface at Indiana Grand, according to the release from Sunland. The position in New Mexico is a homecoming for Jamison, who served as the track superintendent for Sunland from 1997-2000.

Myles dead at 67

Luke Myles, a retired jockey who was a perennial leading rider at Los Alamitos, died Nov. 11 in Oklahoma following an illness, according to an announcement from the California track. He was 67.

Myles was a native of Hugo, Okla. He was a leading rider at Los Alamitos from the 1970s to the early 1990s. He won 687 Quarter Horse races at the track, including 29 stakes.

Myles also was part of a 1974 match race in Mexico City that pitted his mount, Come Six, against Thoroughbred flash and eventual winner, Beduino. The ontrack crowd was an estimated 50,000, according to the release from Los Alamitos.

Myles’s survivors include daughter Mandy Wendel and son Luke Myles III.

* Diodoro said he will be moving a stable of horses into Oaklawn the first part of December. The meet opens on Jan. 25.