LOS ALAMITOS RACE COURSE, CYPRESS, CA – Perhaps it was not the prettiest race ever run by Keith Nellesen’s Beuteeful, but the results were still effective and delightful for her connections, as the dashing gray filly posted the fastest qualifying time to the Grade 1, $415,500 Los Alamitos Oaks during Saturday’s trials held at the Orange County track.
Ridden by Rodrigo Sigala Vallejo for trainer Kristen Watanabe, Beuteeful broke in after starting from post one, then angled slightly outwards as she crossed the gap. She established a daylight lead before holding off the big surge by M and G Farms and Steve Burns’ Shiny New by a neck in a time of :19.787 at 400 yards. In the end, Beuteeful added another victory to her resume to bring her record to six wins in eight career starts at Los Alamitos.
She’ll now enter the Los Alamitos Oaks final to be held on Saturday, March 28 as the top qualifier to California’s richest race for 3-year-old fillies. A total of 22 fillies competed in the three trials held on Saturday night, with the impressive newcomer Ruse Ticle Knockout and the surprising CM Jessa Blue Monday recording the other trial wins. The complete list of qualifiers is as follows: Beuteeful (:19.787), Ruse Ticle Knockout(:19.810), Shiny New (:19.812), Fancy Upp (:19.922), Diamond Cowgirl 123 (:19.981), CM Jessa Blue Monday (:20.070), Walk When I Walk (:20.091), French Valley (:20.154), You Are The Best (:20.154), and Elemyntal (:20.227).
Beuteeful will look to add the Los Alamitos Oaks to her victory in the Grade 2 Robert Adair Kindergarten Futurity last year. Bred in Utah by McColee Land & Livestock, the daughter of KVN Corona out of Budder Think Twice also qualified for both the Grade 1 Golden State Million Futurity and the Grade 1 Los Alamitos Two Million Futurity. Already with earnings of $313,262, she’ll need to be as sharp as ever when she takes on the other top fillies in the Los Alamitos Oaks. Beuteeful, along with the others in her trial, had to stand behind the gate for some extra time due to the scratch of one of the other fillies in the trial.
“She broke a little slow, perhaps because of the scratch of the other horse,” Sigala Vallejo said. “She’s a great filly and it wasn’t the most comfortable win, but to qualify the way she did, it was a very good race. She may have also been a little confused because we had to take her out of the gate and the time that she waited behind the gate; perhaps that confused her. Fortunately, she ran a good race and she enjoyed another triumph, and now we move to the final.”
Making her Los Alamitos debut, Mi Serenity’s Ruse Ticle Knockout took the lead shortly after the start, opened up a half-length lead early on, and then cruised from there to win by a length under jockey Edwin Escobedo for trainer Eddie Willis. The Apollitical Jess filly, out of the top broodmare Adolph Tres Knockout, improved to five wins from nine starts while posting the second-fastest qualifying time. Bred by Five Puig Racing LLC, Ruse Ticle Knockout ran third in last year’s Grade 3 Black Gold Fillies Futurity and second in the Grade 2 Southwest Juvenile Invitational. Willis won the Los Alamitos Oaks last year with Shaken Goin On, who also arrived at the Cypress track after competing in the Black Gold Fillies Futurity in 2024.
“She’s so professional,” Escobedo said. “She just goes in the gate and is ready to run. She just does it on her own. I just don’t want to mess it up and we just try to get there first. The races before that I’ve ridden her, she really likes to close down at the end, especially at Ruidoso. She really liked 440 as well.”
Ruse Ticle Knockout won her Rainbow Futurity trial at 400 yards and ran a strong third in her trial to the All American Futurity at 440 yards.
Shiny New, a filly by Mpshinning out of the AQHA champion Quirky, was coming on strong when running second to Beuteeful in their trial. Lightly raced, the Valentin Zamudio-trained filly was the fastest qualifier to the Grade 1 Ed Burke Million Futurity and was third in that final. She won her 2026 debut in her last start and in this outing, she bumped early on but still ran a very good race from post number six. She’s finished in the money in all five career starts. Ruben Lozano has ridden her in all of her starts.
Lozano was also in the irons for trainer Luke Lindsey aboard trial winner CM Jessa Blue Monday, who rallied from an early deficit to win at odds of 15-1. Owned and bred by Randy Dickerson, the filly by Cyber Monday out of Cool Blue Corona held off Grade 1 Los Alamitos Winter Derby finalist Walk When I Walk to win this trial.
“I’m thrilled,” Lindsey said. “Ruben said she was struggling early getting away from there for the first five jumps. Then she came flying. To me, it looked like she was ahead because we were watching at an angle; then I saw the drone shot and I saw that she caught them.”
Dickerson, a longtime horseman with ties to the Northwest, and Lindsey have enjoyed many victories together at Los Alamitos over the years.
“(Randy) is like family,” Lindsey said. “We’re down here, we’re trying this out. I’ve trained for him for eight years. We have some good horses right now.”
Courtesy Los Alamitos Publicity
