Record-breaking Gamine goes fast and furious in Acorn

THE Belmont may have been the headline race on the card but the Grade 1 Acorn Stakes got a lot of attention too. The Bob Baffert-trained filly Gamine had blown away her rivals on her debut over six and a half furlongs, winning by six and a quarter lengths at Santa Anita in March, earning high regard from her trainer.

She then had a slight blip at Oaklawn on the Arkansas Derby card, winning an allowance race by just a neck and later reported to be one of two horses from the Baffert yard that failed an initial drug test, along with the Arkansas Derby winner Charlatan. Results of split samples have still to be released. On Saturday, the Into Mischief filly had six rivals but they got little chance to see much of her. Leading from the start, Gamine ran the fastest Acorn in history in an official margin of 18 and three quarter lengths.

She posted early fractions under John Velazquez of :22.48 and :45.28 and stopped the clock in 1m 32.55secs, breaking the record from 2002.

Baffert was not in attendance and his assistant Jimmy Barnes said: “It was an amazing race out of her, especially coming into a Grade 1, only her third start. Johnny rode her right to the way we told him to go. We told him to take advantage of her position, and he certainly did.

“Two turns, one turn, she can handle either one. We’ll go home, give her a little time, and see what’s next for her. I can imagine something at Saratoga.”

Professional

“She did everything I wanted her to do,” Velazquez said. “She’s a little bit on the aggressive side, but I let her relax around the backstretch. Once we got to the five-sixteenths pole, I let her run. By the quarter pole, she opened up so quickly I had to look back. She’s very nice and professional. I wish they were all that easy.”

Gamine was the sale-topper at last year’s Fasig-Tipton Midlantic Two-Year-Olds in Training Sale, where she was purchased for $1.8 million on behalf of Michael Lund Petersen.

Also on the Belmont card, the Grade 1 Woody Stephens Stakes (three-year-olds) was won by the Tom Amoss-trained No Parole, a first Grade 1 winner for Violence. Returned to sprint distances after a bad run in the Rebel Stakes, the previously unbeaten No Parole glided to the early lead and pulled away for a three-and-three-quarter-length win.

Oleksandra became the first Australian-bred to win a Grade 1 in North America since the pattern race scheme came into being in 1974 when she won the Jaipur Stakes on the turf. The five-year-old mare, in the same Team Valor ownership as her sire Animal Kingdom, justified favouritism by a neck for Neil Drysdale and Joel Rosario.

The Declaration Of War three-year-old Decorated Invader impressed in the Grade 2 Pennine Ridge over a mile on the turf. The colt had finished fourth in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf last year after a Grade 1 win in Woodbine’s Summer Stakes.

Trained by Christophe Clement for a West Point Thoroughbreds partnership, he had no problems winning by over four lengths.“I’ve liked him since day one, and I think he’s been a tremendous horse since the beginning,” Clement said.