To succeed, Giving Freely must behave in the gate

The Quarter Horse Giving Freely won a minor stakes at Los Alamitos last year before she developed the naughty habit of acting up in the gate. In two of her last three races, she was unsettled before the start and finished seventh and ninth.

On March 21, Giving Freely zoomed a furlong from the gate in 11.9 seconds, the fastest of 67 works at the distance that morning.

Saturday, Giving Freely will have her first start since November in a competitive allowance race for nonwinners of three races at 330 yards.

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The allowance is the last of nine races on a program that begins at 9 p.m. Eastern, or 6 p.m. Pacific. Wagering is available through DRFBets.com.

Giving Freely, who won the Los Alamitos Juvenile Challenge last August, drew the outside post in a field of eight, which means she is not likely to be in the gate very long before the start if all goes well. By Corona Cartel, Giving Freely is trained by Mike Robbins for Gary and Micah McKinney’s Reliance Ranches. Robbins is having an excellent 2020 at Los Alamitos, having won with 7 of his first 13 runners through Thursday.

There are several runners in the field with experience in lucrative futurities, notably Up for Speed, who was seventh in the $365,000 Governor’s Cup Futurity last July and sixth in the $355,000 Pacific Coast Quarter Horse Racing Association Breeders’ Futurity in October. Those races were at 350 yards.

Trained by Scott Willoughby, Up for Speed was fourth by 1 1/2 lengths as the 4-5 favorite in an allowance race at 350 yards on March 28 in his first start since the PCQHRA Breeders’ Futurity. Up for Speed broke to the outside from an inside post on March 28 and was unable to recover.

The 330-yard distance will work for All Prettied Up, who won an allowance race for nonwinners of two at 330 yards on March 21.

Diamond Rock was beaten a nose in an allowance race at 330 yards in February. He was fourth in the $213,300 El Primero Del Ano Derby at 400 yards on March 29 as a longshot, losing by three lengths to Tell Cartel, the leading 3-year-old at Los Alamitos this year.

Tell Cartel is trained by Matt Fales for Mimi Wells. Saturday, they run Evee in the ninth race. Evee was fifth in the $403,500 Los Alamitos Oaks on March 28. She started from the rail in that race and has the same post position on Saturday.