Tell Cartel will try to retire to stud as a Champion of Champions winner

A few days after Saturday’s $600,000 Champion of Champions at Los Alamitos, the 3-year-old colt Tell Cartel will be vanned to Coolidge, Ariz., where he will begin a stallion career in 2021.

The Champion of Champions result will determine whether he retires as a champion and perhaps commands a higher stud fee.

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Owned by Mimi Wells and trained by Matt Fales, Tell Cartel won the $1,052,350 Los Alamitos Super Derby on Nov. 8 to earn a berth in the Champion of Champions, a race similar to the Breeders’ Cup Classic as a year-end championship.

First run in 1972, a dozen years before the launch of the Breeders’ Cup, the Champion of Champions is run at the Quarter Horse classic distance of 440 yards. For Tell Cartel, 440 yards will be a new distance. This year, Tell Cartel has won three derbies at Los Alamitos at 400 yards.

The win in the Super Derby was Tell Cartel’s first stakes win since the El Primero Del Ano Derby in March. In the spring, Tell Cartel underwent surgery to have a bone chip removed from a knee.

Any doubt about Tell Cartel’s condition was erased with the Super Derby win.

Aside from Tell Cartel, the Champion of Champions is led by Chocolatito and Powerful Favorite, major stakes winners against older horses this year at Los Alamitos.

“A top-three finish would be my career highlight,” Fales, 35, said on Wednesday. “Winning, it would put us on another level. Realistically, if we hit the board it will be a heckuva night.”

The race distance is the greatest concern for Fales. While 40 additional yards may not seem like a significant increase, it can be the difference between a win and a close loss in a top-class Quarter Horse race.

Fales was left encouraged by Tell Cartel’s finish in the Super Derby in 19.32 seconds, a personal best for the colt at the distance.

“It’s going to take that last 40 yards with Tell Cartel,” he said. “I’d like to be in range with 40 yards to go.”

Tell Cartel will be retired to the Fales’s family farm, which is between Phoenix and Tucson. Fales said Tell Cartel’s fee is advertised at $5,500.

Tell Cartel is trying to become the first 3-year-old to win the Champion of Champions since Zoomin for Spuds in 2016. Zoomin for Spuds was named champion 3-year-old gelding that year. Remarkably, Zoomin for Spuds is part of this year’s Champion of Champions field, a record-equaling fifth appearance.