Oaklawn Park

THE race that got the most attention in the US last weekend was a Grade 2, but it saw the return to the track of last year’s Horse of the Year, the now four-year-old filly, Thorpedo Anna.

From stall one, she made most of the running and, although she had to be asked to get the job done coming into the straight as Free Like a Girl made a valiant effort, she opened up distance from the furlong and a half mark to win by three and a half lengths.

“As always, she puts in another special run. I was glad to see no one wanted to hook her all that hard. As always, Brian knows her so well and she does what she does easy,” her trainer Kenny McPeek said.

He added: “She’s going to get beat one day. Every horse gets beat, even with the Zenyattas of the world. I’m just trying to enjoy the ride, you really have to any time you get a horse this good. I hope every trainer in America gets the chance to train a horse this good.”

Oaklawn’s $1.25 million Grade 1 Apple Blossom Handicap on April 12th is her likely next outing.

Santa Anita

B. Wayne Hughes Beholder Mile Stakes (Grade 1)

THE Grade 1 Beholder Mile over a mile at Santa Anita was fought out, like many graded races this winter, by two Bob Baffert-trained females in the unbeaten Cavalieri and the Chilean-bred Richi with the winner getting the better of her stable companion close home for a three-quarter length success. Godolphin’s Tarifa was five and three-quarter lengths back in third.

Cavalieri is a lightly raced four-year-old, who didn’t make her debut until last August, but this is her fourth win in a row.

Richi went right to the front, but Cavalieri never let her stablemate get more than a length ahead.

Jockey Juan Hernandez said of the Nyquist filly: “My filly just gave me another gear at the eighth pole, and she won the race. She is getting better, and she showed that today.”

Tampa Bay Downs

THERE was another impressive Kentucky Derby Trial winner, when Owen Almighty took the Grade 3 Lambholm South Tampa Bay Derby by three and a half lengths, with last year’s dual Grade 1 winner Chancer McPatrick unable to lay a glove on the son of Speightstown, trained by Brian Lynch.

Former Irish-trained Hill Road was third, a further two and three-quarter lengths back for Chad Brown and Amo Racing.

Off a slow pace, the winner kicked away from the opposition into the straight in the mile and half a furlong contest.

Owen Almighty is well up the Kentucky Derby qualifying points list, with 65 overall points to place him second on the leaderboard. However, his trainer Brian Lynch has suggested the colt might be better suited to races shorter than the Derby.

In the Grade 3 Florida Oaks, Nitrogen, a Medaglia d’Oro filly, trained by Mak Casse, proved half a length too good for Lush Lips, a British-bred Ten Sovereigns filly, in whom Medallion Racing, Steve Weston, Mrs Paul Shanahan and Mrs M.V. Magnier have a share.