Summertime Favorite stands out in Kindergarten Futurity

Summertime Favorite will be favored in Sunday’s $303,600 Robert Adair Kindergarten Futurity for Quarter Horses at Los Alamitos after a perfect March and April.

In March, Summertime Favorite had two bullet workouts at 220 yards from the gate that left the filly the leading female prospect among unraced 2-year-olds. In April, Summertime Favorite proved the hype was correct, winning a 300-yard maiden race April 9 and setting the fastest qualifying time for the Kindergarten in trials April 30.

The Kindergarten is run at 300 yards and is the first futurity of the year at Los Alamitos.

Trained and co-owned by Paul Jones, Summertime Favorite is one of five fillies among the 10 finalists in the Kindergarten, which honors the late leading jockey Robert Adair.

Summertime Favorite, co-owned by Terry Thompson, will be ridden by Ramon Sanchez, who was aboard for the maiden race and trial race wins.

Summertime Favorite won a division of the time trials by a neck over Shangrilalala, who had her first start in the trials.

Summertime Favorite was timed in 15.56 seconds for the 300-yard trial. Jones said after the trials he was concerned that Summertime Favorite was agitated before the start.

“It looked like she started to get a little hotter,” he told Los Alamitos publicity. “She still got out of the gate okay.

“She got bumped a little bit and she was able to overcome it. (Shangrilalala) looked like a pretty nice horse, pretty highly regarded horse, and with pretty good works. We were able to run by her.”

For the final, Shangrilalala has drawn the outside post. She is one of five maidens in the field. All the runners have one or two career starts, all at Los Alamitos.

The race has four other trial race winners – Dont Foose With Me, Fire and Sass, Perfect Az Can Be, and Seems Even Better.

Perfect Az Can Be, a filly, and Seems Even Better have won twice. Perfect Az Can Be set the second-fastest qualifying time of 15.59 seconds in the trials. Seems Even Better was timed in 15.72 seconds in the time trials.