Stable Notes by Mike Ahrens: Friday, July 3, 2020

We started the day with a mild crosswind, had a headwind in the third race, back to crosswind for a couple of races before a strong tailwind in the middle part of the day, back to a mild crosswind for the remainder with a brief rain shower in only the 13th race. So, fairly typical and variable weather of Ruidoso. The five fastest times from today's trials will proceed to the finals. The first race was an impressive field led by Cyber Monday who won the Ruidoso Futurity. He did not disappoint and was the fastest time until late in the day. Runner up in that event was Flashing My PJs, who was on the bubble for qualifiers until late in the day despite racing a little greenly. When the wind switched to a strong tailwind in race six, that event had the second through fifth fastest times to that point. There was not another time to break the top five until race 11 which saw Mister Illusion put forth a powerful performance under Rodrigo Vallejo for trainer Heath Taylor to put up the fastest time of the day. No further races yielded a qualifier for the finals.

"It's just the elements here," said Sergio Ibarra, trainer of Cyber Monday, who stumbled out of the gate today but still ran the second-fastest time of the day. "You're not just running against other horses. He had the same problem last time, stumbled coming out. He's just a big happy horse."

Blane Wood is the trainer of third-fastest qualifier in Caliente Caramelo who won the sixth by a head. Wood has had an untypically slow start to the season, but his trainees are starting to come around in a good way. "This is the time of the year for runners to start showing up. We've liked her a bit all along," he said of this filly.

Tomorrow has a forecast of some rain likely about 1 pm, and another 15 great races on deck.