Santa Anita Palos Verdes Stakes and Baffle Stakes Recap

Santa Anita ran two stakes over the weekend, one each Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday, only five went to the post when trainer Richard Mandella scratched the 2 to 5 favorite Big City Lights on the morning of the race for the Grade 3 Palos Verdes stakes at ¾ on the main track.  Bartholdy, coming off a dominating 1^st allowance condition win thus became the 3/2 favorite, but he was hardly in the race as Roll On Big Joe, the second choice at 2/1 carved out fractions of 22.40 and 44.16 and wired the field in a quick 1:08.60 for the six furlongs.  He won by four over For All Mankind who was off at 9/2 with the favorite running third.

Roll On Big Joe was going to scratch and ship to Oaklawn for a stakes engagement, but decided to stay home when he heard Big City Lights was out of the race. Bob Hess trained the winner and Umberto Rispoli, who won three on Saturday, was in the irons. The winner paid $6.00 even and the Beyer number came back big at 102. It was his fifth win in 15 starts and his earnings now stand at $298,580.

On Sunday, 7 went to the post in the ungraded Baffle stakes at six and a half on the turf coming down the hill for sophomores. Flavien Prat rode the 4 to 5 favorite Scipio, who had a pretty rough trip just before the dirt crossover, when he got boxed in with nowhere to run. But Prat got him to the outside and lost considerable ground, but when you’re on the best horse, it didn’t make that much of a difference in the end. He won by a length and a half and was under a hand ride the final furlong. A 34/1 shot, Game Warrior, got up for second nosing out Freedoms Not Free who was the 2^nd choice in the wagering at 5/2. Scipio is trained by Richie Baltas and this was his 1^st stakes score and just his 2^nd win, although he was 2^nd and 3^rd in graded stakes as a juvenile. Scipio paid $3.80 to win and was a Turfdom Best Bet on the day.                      

THIS WEEKS STAKES ACTION:  Santa Anita has only one stakes race scheduled this weekend as they prepare for Big Cap Day the following Saturday, March 1^st, where they will run four graded stakes. This Saturday, they had 11 nominations for the Wishing Well stakes, an ungraded affair with a pot of $100,000 at six furlongs on the turf for older fillies and mares. Laulne from the Phil D’Amato barn and the red hot Queen Maximus from the Jeff Mullins barn head up the nominees. Other major players will be Stay and Scam for Doug O’Neill, Miss Roberts, on our Horses to Watch list, also trained by Mullins, Royal Charter for Len Powell, and Vengazza for trainer Richard Mandella.

Santa Anita jockey, Flavien Prat left town once again last Saturday for the third consecutive week to ride stakes races back east, but when he’s here at home, he makes every mount count. He was back on Sunday and got the hat trick to get even with J.J. Hernandez for the riding title at 31 apiece, then won three more on Monday to jump out to a three win lead 34 to 31. J.J. blanked both Sunday and Monday which is very unusual. Umberto Rispoli is third with 21 wins after getting a hat trick on Saturday. Prat has far and away the best win percentage at 32%. Trainer Mark Glatt won one on Monday and tied Baffert for the training title at 17 apiece. But Baffert and Jeff Mullins (who is in third with 14 wins) have the best win percentage of trainers in the top 10 at 32%. Three other trainers that you can make money with and have much smaller barns, but have been on fire at this meet are Bob Hess Jr., Dean Pederson, and Mike Puype.