THERE are three Grade 1s on the Santa Anita card on St Stephen’s Day and also a very familiar name on the jockeys board.
Frankie Dettori has with five rides on the card and reunites with Country Grammer, the horse with whom he won the Dubai World Cup last March, in the Grade 2 San Antonio Stakes where the Bob Baffert-trained colt will go off favourite against five rivals. He has three second places to his name since that Meydan win, the last in the Awesome Again Stakes in October.
John Sadler’s Heywoods Beach is the danger but has yet to win a Grade 1.
In the Grade 1 American Oaks on turf, the last race on the card, Dettori partners outsider Lady Clementine with Chad Brown’s Salimah, an Irish-bred daughter of El Kabier the likely favourite after two east coast wins on her last two races.
British-bred Mise En Scene, now with Brendan Walsh, and the 2021 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf winner Pizza Bianca look the principals.
The Grade 1 La Brea Stakes over seven furlongs looks destined for Bob Baffert with either the Magnier, Tabor or Smith runner Under The Stars or Midnight Memories who will go off favourite after her win in the Grade 2 Zenyatta Stakes here last time.
The feature race is the Grade 1 Malibu, won last year by a horse called Flightline. This year’s contest also features one of the better three-year-olds of the last season in the Baffert-trained Taiba, winner of the Grade 1 Santa Anita and Pennsylvania Derbys. Last time out he was a distant third to Flightline in the Longines Breeders’ Cup Classic. There is nothing of that calibre here and chief rival looks to be the Dick Mandalla-trained American Pharoah colt Forbidden Kingdom, but his from has tailed off somewhat from early last year when he won two Grade 2 races at this track in the San Felipe Stakes and the San Vicente Stakes.