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SPIT CURL DIVA TAKES ON THE BOYS
IN PRAIRIE MEADOWS' CHAMPIONSHIP WEEKEND
2010 Champion Aged Mare Spit Curl Diva will face the boys in Saturday's Bank of America Prairie Meadows Challenge Championship.
© Dustin Orona PhotoALTOONA, IA—AUGUST 30, 2011—To Tom Lepic of Iowa City, Saturday's $70,000 Bank of America Prairie Meadows Challenge Championship is like being in a BCS bowl game.
"It's like getting the opportunity to be in a national football championship," Lepic said. "You might lose, but at least you're there."
The Challenge Championship for ages 3-and-older is the marquee race of Prairie Meadows' Challenge weekend, sponsored by the Bank of America. It consists of six regional qualifying races, with each winner advancing to the national finals on Oct. 29 at Los Alamitos racetrack in southern California. Four of last year's six national winners will be running at Prairie Meadows, which has three challenge races on Friday and three on Saturday.
One of the 2010 national winners was Spit Curl Diva, owned by Lepic and Sara Morgan, who won the Distaff Challenge. She was named the country's top aged mare and aged horse of 2010 and has won 18-of-34 races in her career.
Instead of defending her title in the Distaff Challenge, Spit Curl Diva will take on colts in the Challenge Championship, which has drawn one of the top fields ever to compete in a Prairie Meadows quarter horse meet. The Spit Curl Jess mare's opposition includes face Jess A Runner, who won this race last year and has the track records for 440 yards at both Prairie Meadows and Canterbury Park in Minnesota. Also entered is Acorn, who won the $200,000 national Derby Challenge for 3-year-olds in 2010.
"I can't imagine there's ever been a race any tougher (at Prairie Meadows) than the Challenge Championship this year," Lepic said.
And that's why he decided to put his mare in against the boys. "When we saw Jess A Runner and Acorn would run, we wanted to be in," Lepic said. "Win or lose, it'll be great to have a horse good enough to run against these horses.
"It's the race she needs to be in. I think she's earned the chance to run in a race like this. She proved last year that she can do it." The national finals for the Challenge Championship has a purse of $350,000.