Victory Is Child’s Play for Hawkish

A troubled second in his first two starts, Hawkish picked the right race to earn his first victory.

A 7-1 longshot, the 2-year-old son of Dash Thru Traffic broke well from his outside post and went on to a decisive win in the $400,000 Kindergarten Futurity Saturday night at Los Alamitos.

Owned by Enrique Gonzalez’s EG High Desert Farms and trained by Concepcion Balderrama, the California-bred, who was a $90,000 yearling purchase, gave jockey Alex Bautista his second Kindergarten victory.

Hawkish also broke a track record that was more than 10 years old. He completed the 300 yards in 15.18 seconds, eclipsing the mark of 15.21 set by the older mare Ima Ladys Alibi on Dec. 26, 1992.

Metallic Lion -- who was trying to give Paul Jones, the runaway leader in the Los Alamitos trainer standings, his first Kindergarten win -- ,settled for second and Shyann Cash was third.

-- Bob Mieszerski