Zoomin for Spuds tops Brad McKinzie field

Zoomin for Spuds, fourth in the $600,000 Champion of Champions on Dec. 15, will attempt to qualify for the same year-end championship race for the third consecutive year in Sunday’s $157,200 Brad McKinzie Los Alamitos Winter Championship for older horses.

Zoomin for Spuds, who won the 2016 Champion of Champions, has drawn the rail in the 400-yard Winter Championship. The winner will receive an automatic berth to the Champion of Champions.

In December, Zoomin for Spuds was beaten a neck by Bodacious Eagle in the Champion of Champions. Bodacious Eagle was later named 2018 World Champion.

Owned by Jim Walker and trained by Monty Arrossa, Zoomin for Spuds won the first of two divisions of time trials for the Winter Championship on Jan. 20.

The first five finishers of each trial advanced to the final, although that was not the original intent. The timer failed on the second division, leading to decision by track stewards on Jan. 22 that determined the field. Originally, the 10 fastest runners, regardless of finishing positions in the trials, would have determined the field.

Zoomin for Spuds, 6, is one of five runners from the Champion of Champions in the Winter Championship field, along with LD Is Back (who finished fifth), He Looks Hot (6th), Yanque (8th) and Tarzanito (9th).

He Looks Hot won the second division of the Winter Championship trials, a race in which BH Lisas Boy, the winner of the 2018 Winter Championship, finished sixth after a troubled trip.

He Looks Hot finished three-quarters of a length behind Bodacious Eagle in the Champion of Champions. Last October, He Looks Hot won the Los Alamitos Championship, one of the leading races of the year for older horses.

Tarzanito won the Go Man Go Handicap at Los Alamitos in September. A 5-year-old horse, Tarzanito was named the champion aged stallion for the 2018 season at a ceremony in Oklahoma City last month.