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Webb is on the comeback trail Mail Tribune / Andrew Mariman Jockey Bobby Webb has had a successful comeback after a long suspension. Webb leads all jockeys after six days of the nine-day Grants Pass Downs season. Webb has put past drug problems behind him and is focused on winning today's 11th running of the $35,000 Far West Futurity. By FRANK SILOW GRANTS PASS - Today's $35,000 Far West Futurity is redemption time for Bobby Webb. The acclaimed jockey has won several riding titles in the Northwest during his 20-year career, but he has failed to score a victory in Oregon's richest quarter-horse event. The Far West Futurity, in its 11th year, is run in two legs. The first on July 4 at Grants Pass Downs; the second is contested in the winter at Portland Meadows. Webb qualified three horses trained by Jim Glenn Jr. for today's finals - the fastest being A Chancy Chick - in trials held June 16 at GP Downs. The 36-year-old jockey rode the entire meet here in mid-1990s. He claimed top jockey honors in 1996 after coming off a suspension in Idaho for drug use. He leads the jockey standings with 12 victories this year with three days remaining in the GP Downs season. Post time for today's nine-race card is 1 p.m. at the Josephine County Fairgrounds. The season concludes Saturday and Sunday with a 1 p.m. post time both days. Webb again got in trouble for drugs in the spring of 1997. His four-year suspension was lifted in time for this year's GP Downs meet. As in 1996, Webb is using Grants Pass as a springboard back into racing. "I grew up on little tracks like this," says Webb, who drove long-haul trucks and worked as an exercise rider at the Windy Ridge horse ranch in Washington while he was inactive. "The first few I rode here it was tough to get into the swing of things. By the second week, I had my timing back." Webb says his latest trouble came from taking painkillers after a serious thumb injury at Portland Meadows. "It's another one of life's learning experiences," says Webb. "Now I have two teenage daughters and I know using drugs illegally is not acceptable behavior. "I'm just staying close to my family and the people that won't lead me to get started on that," continues Webb. "I'm doing it for my daughters as much as for me. They're my biggest fans." Glenn, who has trained the winning horses in two of the last four Far West Futurities at GP Downs, has known Webb since childhood. Glenn isn't deterred by Webb's past transgressions. "He's really a good guy," says Glenn, a retired jockey who was Webb's roommate in their teen years. "He hasn't done that much wrong, but it just seems like every time he screws up he gets caught." Glenn has become a dominant figure in the Far West. The Yoncalla-based trainer has qualified multiple horses annually in both the Grants Pass and Portland legs. "He (Webb) rode five for me here so far and has won four," says Glenn. "I have no complaints. I'm just glad Bobby's back." Two of Glenn's horses - A Chancy Chick and Can't Fly By Me - will be grouped as an entry because of common ownership. They will be paired as a single betting unit and should be the overwhelming favorite in the seven-horse field. The Scott Raley-trained qualifier Peppers First Dash came out of the trials sore and will be scratched. Raley won last year's race with Jets Flame. Webb has selected to ride A Chancy Chick, while jockey Donnie Sandoval is being brought in for Can't Fly By Me. Sandoval, one of four riders coming to GP Downs just for the Far West, is a very experienced rider in big races. Sandoval is a former world-class jockey who now manages a horse ranch in Washington and rides part-time. Glenn's other horse in the field, Isle Fly Easy, will be ridden by John Creager, who has victories this year in the $150,000 Bitterroot Futurity and the $80,000 MBNA Challenge Races in Boise, Idaho. This is not the first time Webb has qualified more than one horse for the finals, which carries a $14,034 purse to the winner this year. Webb has had his qualifiers win the race in the past. "I've always chosen wrong or it came down to a business thing," says Webb. Both Creager and Ramon Figueroa are coming up from the prestigious Los Alamitos quarter-horse track in Southern California. Figueroa will get the mount on the third fastest qualifier, Gypsy Women, one of two Bob Beckner-trained horses in the field. Jockey Twyla Beckner, Bob Beckner's daughter, will ride the other -- Mite Delight. Twyla Beckner, last year's winning jockey of the Far West at GP Downs, qualified both of her father's horses. The jockey chose to ride the home-grown Mite Delight, who is owned by her mother and raised on her family's farm near Albany. Mite Delight has been a hard-luck horse so far in her brief career, but she's the only horse to win a trial heat out of the unfavorable one post at GP Downs. "She's a nice big strong filly," says Twyla Beckner, "and she's coming into herself. She's starting to figure it out." The other two horses in the field are Win Potent Win and Ianlander. Win Potent Win, is owned and trained by Judith Williams of Roseburg. Win Potent Win posted the second fastest qualifying time (18.11 seconds) and Danny Boag is coming in from the California fair circuit as rider. Veteran trainer John Harris has the only male in the field, Ianlander. Tad Sakes, a two-time winner of the Far West at GP Downs, is the jockey. But Bobby Webb's quest for his first Far West victory is the compelling story of this year's race. "I feel I've got something to prove," says Webb. "It would make my comeback all that more memorable to me." Reach reporter Frank Silow at 776-4480, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.