Feature Jess Rockin
5-Year-Old Mare
(Feature Mr Jess - Meter Me Rockin by Meter Me Gone)

Qualified by winning the Bank of America Challenge Championship

Lifetime Record: 28-6-11-1, $270,446          2010 Record: 5-3-2-0, $217,338

2010 could be a year of upset wins for Feature Jess Rockin. Little known in California until her upset victory over a tremendous field in the $353,500 Bank of America Challenge Championship November 19 at the Fair Grounds in New Orleans, Feature Jess Rockin will play the spoiler role in the Champion of Champions on December 11 in what will be her first start ever in California. No one should take the Feature Mr Jess mare lightly. She showed her mettle by going gate-to-wire in track record time to win the Bank of America Challenge Championship and she has proven very capable of winning at the classic Quarter Horse distance of 440 yards. In fact, the brown mare's three most recent victories have all come at 440 yards. She also finished second to the talented Jess Runner in another 440 yard race in between those quarter mile victories. No horse in the Champion of Champions field can boast a more impressive recent record at this distance than this four-legged locomotive.

Her most impressive win to date came in the Bank of America Challenge Championship. Feature Jess Rockin defeated an 11-horse field that included four champions by a half length, covering the 440 yards in :21.262, breaking her own track record at this distance of :21.397. Sent off at 10-1, Feature Jess Rockin was facing a group that included 2008 World Champion Stolis Winner, 2008 Champion of Champions winner Jess You And I and 2009 champion 3-year-old gelding Time For A Cigar. However, her victory could have been a case of good home cooking.

"The track surface (at the Fair Grounds) and the starting gates are a little different than the others are used to, so I think that helped her," said jockey John Hamilton said. "She's just automatic and swallows everything up. In the paddock, she was staring everybody down. She gets near horses and she can intimidate them. I'm excited to go to California. She's the best thing I've ever ridden. She's unbelievable."

Hamilton, who rides the Oklahoma homebred for Reed Land and Cattle Co. is very familiar with upsets at Los Alamitos. The veteran rider won a couple of stakes races - the Merial Distaff Challenge and the Grade 1 Charger Bar Handicap - here with Texas Chatterbox and both times she paid handsomely

Feature Jess Rockin has won three of five starts. She started the year with a victory in the January 17 Sawgrass Stakes at Hialeah, then in March was second to Spit Curl Diva in the Decketta Handicap (G3). She'll have a chance to renew her rivalry with Spit Curl Diva as she's also expected to run in the Champion of Champions. Feature Jess Rockin rested over the summer, she returned to run second to the aforementioned Jess A Runner in the Bank of America Prairie Meadows Championship Challenge (G2), then won the Fair Grounds Challenge Stakes on September 25.

"We were trying to get her qualified to this deal and we went all the way to Prairie Meadows with her (to compete in a regional qualifying race) and tried to do good up there," said owner Heath Reed. "We got beat up there. (Trainer Donnie Strickland) said we need to haul here down there (to Fair Grounds for a regional qualifying race on September 25). I said, 'Do what you gotta do.'

Feature Jess Rockin was destined to run in the Champion of Champions. Even before she earned her berth courtesy of her Bank of America Challenge Championship win, her connections were already dreaming about making their way to California with her.

"We talked about it (her running in the Champion of Champions). Most people probably thought we were crazy (for already making airline reservations for her to fly to Southern California in anticipation of running in the Champion of Champions), but Donnie said this mare has run big down here.

"When we sent her to Donnie in Florida (at Hialeah Park) last year, and she won a stakes and broke the track record. Then I ran her at Remington and she got beat to Spit Curl Diva by a nose and Donnie said, 'I'm stakes-winning Donnie and you're stakes-placed Heath.' I said, 'I understand. Will you take her back so I don't get her beat again?'

Strickland has a tremendous record in Quarter Horse racing. A resident of Sallisaw, Oklahoma, Strickland's training resume includes winning the $1.9 million All American Futurity in 1996 with Streakin Flyer, who raced for Mike and Janelle Green's Southern Rose Ranch of Pelzer, South Carolina. Earlier this year, he took eight horses to the Red Mile and won five of the 16 races contested there to lead all trainers. His horses won three of the four stakes held during the two-day meet. Strickland is originally from North Carolina. Last winter, Strickland won the $25,000 Bienvenido de Nuevo Stakes at Hialeah Park with This Flights For You. The race, whose name loosely translates to "welcome back," was the feature on Hialeah's first day of Quarter Horse racing.

"We earned a spot in history," Strickland said.

Reed, meanwhile, is an excellent horseman as well. He trains 2010 Remington Park Futurity winner Llano Teller, a colt by Teller Cartel co-owned by Wootan Racing and Reed Land And Cattle Company.

Back to Feature Jess Rockin's prowess at 440 yards. She eclipsed the track record at that distance at Hialeah Park back on January 17 when she clocked a time of :21.498 in winning the $22,500 Sawgrass Stakes. She won the race by 1 ¼ lengths over a sloppy track. As usual she was dismissed at odds of 14-1 en route to her track record win.

And that fact, plus her affinity for winning at a big price makes Feature Jess Rockin one to watch in the Champion of Champions.