Stakes results will be telling
The Sunshine Million races last week at Gulfstream Park and Santa Anita were good ones to bet. However, the tracks are offering stakes races Saturday that are far more important in national scope.
Gulfstream will run the Turf Handicap (Grade I), Donn Handicap (Grade I) and Suwannee River (Grade III). Santa Anita has the Las Virgenes (Grade I), Robert B. Lewis (Grade II) and Strub (Grade II). Horses exiting these stakes will be heard from all year.
For example, the 2009 Lewis produced the winners of the Arkansas Derby (Papa Clem), Santa Anita Derby (Pioneerof the Nile) and Wood Memorial (I Want Revenge).
This year’s Lewis has just as much potential, headed by two sons of sire Tiznow — Tiz Chrome and American Lion. Tiznow won the Breeders’ Cup Classic twice, so the pedigree is strong for his sons to handle the Kentucky Derby distance of 11/4 miles.
Bay colt Tiz Chrome, trained by Bob Baffert and owned by Las Vegans Terry Lanni and Bernie Schiappa, has easily won both career starts, so the sky is the limit. Saturday’s race comes on the third anniversary of his foal date. Bay colt American Lion won the seven-furlong Hollywood Prevue for trainer Eoin Harty his last time out Nov. 21.
The Las Virgenes will showcase possibly the best 3-year-old filly in the country in Blind Luck. Her narrow loss to She Be Wild in the BC Juvenile Fillies cost her an Eclipse Award.
Last year’s Strub field was so deep that two-time Eclipse Award champion Gio Ponti finished fifth behind Cowboy Cal. The most promising 4-year-old in this year’s Strub is another Baffert trainee, Misremembered. His best career races came on dirt at Hoosier Park and Churchill Downs, which is hosting this year’s Breeders’ Cup.
At Gulfstream, the Donn is headed by the mercurial Quality Road. The talented colt’s bad behavior at the starting gate of the BC Classic caused him to be scratched. He loves Gulfstream, though, having won three major stakes at the Hallandale, Fla. track.
• WINSLOW HOMER SIDELINED — Winslow Homer and Piscitelli were both injured in the recent Holy Bull at Gulfstream and have been declared out of the Kentucky Derby.
The loss of Winslow Homer really hurts because his Holy Bull victory hinted at exceptional ability. The race was run over a dirt track, so critics can’t blame the injuries on any synthetic surfaces this time.
Richard Eng’s horse racing column is published Friday in the Las Vegas Review-Journal. He can be reached at rich_eng@hotmail.com.