Compelling Higheasterjet Handicap Brings Together Ruidoso-Loving Horses

RUIDOSO DOWNS (June 30, 2011) – Three horses who have thrived at Ruidoso Downs – local grade 1 winners Noconi, Separate Bet and Swingin Daddyo – are each back at the mountain track and meet in a compelling renewal of the Grade 3, $30,000 Higheasterjet Handicap on Sunday afternoon.

First post time for the 10-race card is 1 p.m. with the Higheasterjet Handicap running as the ninth race. On Monday afternoon the top New Mexico-bred sprinters race five-and-one-half furlongs in the $50,000 Sierra Blanca Handicap.
Noconi and Separate Bet each run in the 350-yard Higheaterjet representing the Paul Jones stable.

Two-time Noconi, an earner of $1,230,563 owned and bred by R.D. Hubbard and Johnny T.L. Jones Jr., returns to New Mexico after a sixth-place run in the Grade 1, $250,000 Remington Park Championship at Remington Park in Oklahoma City. He won four-straight stakes in New Mexico before his trip to secure his 2010 champion aged gelding title.

His New Mexico winning spree began at Ruidoso Downs last summer when he won the Grade 2 All American Gold Cup and then continued at Zia Park when he won the Grade 2 Lovington Handicap and the Grade 2 Zia Park Championship. He then concluded his championship campaign by winning $350,000 The Championship at Sunland Park (G1) as the odds-on favorite.

His resume at Ruidoso Downs includes wins in the 2008All American Derby, the 2009 Higheasterjet Handicap, the 2009 Mr Jet Moore Handicap and last year’s All American Gold Cup.

Jacky Martin rides Noconi with the fifth post position and high weight of 126 pounds.

Separate Bet has also done some of his best work at Ruidoso Downs. The veteran seven-year-old gelding owns the Ruidoso Downs 400-yard track record of :19.186 and won the 2007 Grade 1 Rainbow Derby by nearly three lengths.
Owned by Duane and Jimmy Harrel with Joann Adams, Separate Bet was third in the Grade 1 Leo Stakes at Remington Park two starts ago.

Carlos Huerta riides Separate Bet with the third post position.

Debra Gotovac’s Swingin Daddyo won last summer’s Grade 1, $873,000 Rainbow Derby and then took his All American Derby trial, his most recent win. Before his one-half length win in the Rainbow Derby, he was second behind champion Double Down Special in the Grade 1, $569,000 Ruidoso Derby.

Swingin Daddyo has finished in the top three in eight of 10 starts at Ruidoso Downs.

Trainer Brad Bolen will have Cody Wainscott, the only jockey Swingin Daddyo has known, aboard with the seventh post position.

Joel Tavarez’s three-year-old Prospect To The Top challenges older competition for the first time after a fifth-place finish as the 2-1 favorite in the Ruidoso Derby. He won last fall’s Hobbs America Futurity at Zia Park and prevailed by a neck in the West Texas Derby at Sunland Park in April.