Wave Carver wins Super Derby

Wave Carver, the 2-5 favorite, earned a berth in the $600,000 Champion Of Champions on Dec. 9 with a decisive victory in the $700,000 Los Alamitos Super Derby on Friday night.

A 3-year-old gray son of First Down Dash trained by Paul Jones, Wave Carver, who had won his trial on Oct. 20 by 3 1/2 lengths, overcame a sluggish beginning to win for the 10th time in 17 starts.

The win in the richest race in the country for 3-year-old quarter horses was the sixth in eight starts in 2006 for the California bred.

Ridden by Ramon Sanchez, Wave Carver ran the 400 yards in 19.58 seconds, well off the 19.41 time he had in the trial. The win in the Super Derby was the second in a row for Sanchez, who upset Ocean Runaway, Wave Carver’s older brother and the winner of the 2005 Champion of Champions, with 7-1 shot Apollitical Time a year ago.

Wave Carver was part of a 1-2-3 sweep for Jones, the perennial leading trainer at Los Alamitos. Volcom, a 19-1 shot, finished second and 50-1 outsider Redwood Creek was third.

-- Bob Mieszerski