The field is set for the Champion of Champions and here is how the field shapes up:
• This year’s field features many of racing’s top breeding lines. There are eight different sires and 10 different broodmare sires represented in this year’s race. The winner of the Champion of Champions has gone on to be named AQHA World Champion after 31 of the 52 runnings of this race. The last one to do it is Empressum in 2022.
• FDD Dynasty and PYC Paint Your Wagon are the only sires in this race with more than one horse in the Champion of Champions. FDD Dynasty is the sire of All American Derby winner FDD Dreams and AQHA Challenge Championship winner Scoops Dynasty. PYC Paint Your Wagon is the sire of Hooked N Gone, who is making his first appearance in the Champion of Champions, and Stanley Cartel, a two-time Grade 1 stakes winner at Los Alamitos this season. The other six sires represented are Apollitical Jess (Empressum), Pyc Paint Your Wagon (Hooked N Gone), One Famous Eagle (Jeriko), Tempting Dash (Hott Temptation), Favorite Cartel (Norco), Eye Am King (RC Corona King), and Hes Relentless (Unrelentless). Apollitical Jess is a past winner and track record holder of the Champion of Champions.
• The 10 broodmare sires in this race are First Down Dash (Empressum), Shazoom (Jeriko), Dashin Bye (Scoops Dynasty), and Pretty Boy Perry (Hooked N Gone), Apollitcal Jess (FDD Dreams), Deefirst (RC Corona King), Corona Cartel (Norco), Tres Seis (Hott Temptation), Mr Jess Perry (Stanley Cartel) and PYC Paint Your Wagon (Unrelentless). First Down Dash won the Champion of Champions in 1987 while Apollitical Jess won the 2010 running. Apollitical Jess and PYC Paint Your Wagon are the only ones to be a sire and a broodmare sire of a runner in this year’s Champion of Champions.
• By age, there are three 3-year-old in this race in Los Alamitos Super Derby winner Norco, Mildred Vessels Memorial winner Hott Temptation and All American Derby winner FDD Dreams. There are two 4-year-olds: Stanley Cartel and Unrelentless. There are three 5-year-olds: Hooked N Gone, Jeriko and RC Corona King. There is one 6-year-old: Scoops Dynasty; and there is one 7-year-old: Empressum. There are seven geldings in this year’s Champion of Champions field. Hott Temptation is the only filly while Stanley Cartel and Unrelentles are both stallions.
• FDD Dreams is the youngest horse in this year’s field as he born on February 28, 2022. Hott Temptation was born on February 19, 2022 and Norco’s birthdate is January 25, 2022.
• The 10 horses in the field were bred in five states: Oklahoma (Empressum, Hooked N Gone, Stanley Cartel and Unrelentless); New Mexico ( FDD Dreams and RC Corona King),Texas (Jeriko and Hott Temptation); Idaho (Scoops Dynasty) and California (Norco).
• There are three millionaires in this race in Empressum, who is the sport’s third all-time leading earner with $2,502,748, FDD Dreams, who has $1,801,835 and could go over the $2 million mark with a win here, and Jeriko, who has earned $1,036,672. Scoops Dynasty and Hooked N Gone would become millionaires with a victory in the Champions of Champions. Scoops Dynasty enters with $810,562 in earnings. Hooked N Gone has $791,831.
• Each horse in this race is by a different breeder. There are seven homebreds in this race led by Ed Allred’s Norco, Bobby Cox’s Jeriko, Regina Laymon’s Hooked N Gone, Ed and Von Zae McNelis’ Scoops Dynasty, Steve Holt and Jeff Jones’ Empressum, La Feliz Montana’s FDD Dreams; and Weetona Stanley’s Stanley Cartel. The other breeders with a horse in this race are Fulton Quien Sabe Ranches (Hott Temptation), Flag Ranch LLC (Unrelentless), and Baldemar Parra’s (RC Corona King).
• All 10 horses in the field have already posted at least one Grade I victory. Empressum has won 11 Grade 1 races including two Champion of Champions, while Scoops Dynasty is now a four-time Grade 1 winner after adding two more in 2025. FDD Dreams has won three Grade 1 races. Jeriko and Stanley Cartel are both two-time Grade 1 winners. RC Corona King and Hooked N Gone both have a pair of Grade 1 wins, including one restricted Grade 1 race each. Hott Temptation, Norco, and Unrelentless joined the Grade 1 winner’s club in 2025.
• There are seven horses who have already won Grade 1 races at 440 yards: Empressum has five Grade 1 wins at 440 yards. He won the 2024 and 2022 Champion of Champions, 2023 Robert Boniface Los Alamitos Invitational Championship, and the 2021 Texas Classic Derby and Rainbow Derby at 440 yards. FDD Dreams won the Grade 1 All American Derby at a quarter of a mile, while Hooked N Gone won the 2025 Debbie Schauf Remington Park Championship at 440 yards. Jeriko won 2024 Robert Boniface Los Alamitos Invitational Championship and Stanley Cartel won the 2025 Robert Boniface both held at 440 yards. Scoops Dynasty won the 2025 AQHA Challenge Championship and RC Corona King won the Albuquerque Fall Championship each at the classic quarter mile distance. Norco is the only runner in the Champion of Champions without a start at 440 yards.
• This will be the first appearance in the Champion of Champions for six of the 10 horses in the field. They are Norco, Hott Temptation, FDD Dreams, Unrelentless, RC Corona King and Stanley Cartel. There have been only two runnings in which every one of the Champion of Champions participants were debuting (1972 and 2015).
