ARCADIA — Horse racing has no All-Star break, but in California it does have a time to recognize the breakout stars of the first half of the year and imagine their potential for the second half.
That time is near as the Santa Anita winter-spring season comes to an end this weekend, having produced prospects in practically every top division that will be contested in the summer and fall, up to and including the climactic Saturday of the Oct. 31-Nov. 1 Breeders’ Cup at Del Mar.
Here’s a look back at some of the impressive, appealing and promising horses of the past 5½ months, and a look ahead to what we can hope to see from them next.
The best to run at Santa Anita’s consecutive “Classic” and “Hollywood” meets are no California secrets, having parlayed stakes victories in Arcadia to richer wins out of state.
Raging Torrent, with Frankie Dettori riding for trainer Doug O’Neill, won the Malibu Stakes over Stronghold and Mystic Dan on opening day Dec. 26, began his 4-year-old season by going to Dubai to win the Godolphin Mile in April, and then stepped into the national spotlight at Saratoga on Saturday and upset Fierceness at 8-1 odds in the Metropolitan Handicap. That latest victory lifted him from No. 20 to No. 1 in the National Thoroughbred Racing Association rankings. Off the board in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint last November, he’s a Breeders’ Cup Mile contender this year, with a bid for a repeat win Del Mar’s 7-furlong Pat O’Brien Stakes a possible warmup.
Richard Mandella-trained Kopion scorching the Santa Anita track in La Brea and Santa Monica stakes wins didn’t impress the Churchill Downs morning-line maker, who listed her at 8-1 for the 7-furlong Derby City Distaff. Sent off at 5-2, the 4-year-old filly and rider Kazushi Kimura devoured that Grade I field by three lengths. If the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint were held now, there’s little doubt Kopion would be favored. Mandella said the Great Lady M. Stakes at Los Alamitos on July 5 is a possible next step.
Michael McCarthy’s Journalism’s sizzling San Felipe win and gutty Santa Anita Derby win under Umberto Rispoli should make him Horse of the Meet, and that’s not counting the 3-year-old’s memorable victory in the Preakness and seconds to Sovereignty in the Kentucky Derby and the Belmont. After a rest, he’s expected to go back to Saratoga for the Aug. 23 Travers and make the Breeders’ Cup Classic his goal.
(John Shirreffs’ Baeza, who has finished right behind Journalism three times, could yet mature into a major stakes winner.)
Two of the best performances of the Santa Anita season were by horses from out of state.
Locked dropped in from Florida with Jose Ortiz riding for trainer Todd Pletcher and won the Santa Anita Handicap by 8 ½ lengths, the widest margin in the 88 runnings of the Big ’Cap. We may see the 4-year-old colt, locally owned partly by Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners, again in the Breeders’ Cup Classic.
She Feels Pretty visited from Kentucky with John Velazquez aboard for Cherie DeVaux and immediately betrayed her unfamiliarity with the Santa Anita turf course by bobbling on the dirt crossing, but she recovered to score impressively in the opening-day American Oaks. Subsequent wins at Churchill Downs and Saratoga confirm the 4-year-old is a leading American contender for the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf.
Bob Baffert’s Santa Anita barn towered over two divisions, but this year they were the 3-year-old fillies and older-females divisions instead of 3-year-old colts and older males.
Tenma, one of Baffert’s four winners of 3-year-old filly stakes, beat stablemate Silent Law in the Santa Anita Oaks, but she and Juan Hernandez couldn’t hold off Good Cheer and two other closers in the Kentucky Oaks. Tenma must keep improving to contend in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff.
Four-year-old Seismic Beauty, with leading rider Antonio Fresu, campaigned to be leader of Baffert’s fillies-and-mares class by upsetting barnmate Splendora by five lengths in the fastest Santa Margarita in 13 years. But she’ll get an argument from 4-year-old Cavalieri, unbeaten in four starts after winning with Hernandez in the Beholder. Or even from 5-year-old Chilean-bred Richi, a close second in the Beholder but a five-length winner with Fresu over Splendora in the Santa Maria. The Aug. 2 Clement Hirsch Stakes at Del Mar is a win-and-you’re-in race for the Breeders’ Cup Distaff.
Injuries limited two stars to one race apiece Santa Anita, but it was a big race for each.
Johannes capped his 2024 season as the best turf horse in California by winning with Rispoli in the opening-day San Gabriel. Sidelined since coming out of that race with bone bruising, the 5-year-old has resumed workouts for trainer Tim Yakteen and is expected to race at Del Mar this summer on his way to trying to improve on his second in the Breeders’ Cup Mile.
Nysos’ five-length win under Hernandez in a fast running of the Triple Bend, following a strong second to Mindframe on the Kentucky Derby undercard, indicates the 4-year-old is all the way back from a year away. Baffert is plotting a path to the Breeders’ Cup Classic that could include the Aug. 30 Pacific Classic at Del Mar.
Not only Breeders’ Cup-quality horses made marks at Santa Anita.
The 7-year-old gelding Kings River Knight won the Crystal Water, the turf mile on a day of California-bred stakes, for the third year in a row with Hernandez riding as usual. Trainer John Sadler could follow a familiar path to the Bertrando dirt mile at Los Alamitos on June 21 and the California Dreamin’ at 1 1/16 on turf at Del Mar on Aug. 2.
The 3-year-old filly Om N Joy made off with an unlikely win in the Melair for Cal-breds. After throwing her head as the gate opened and breaking several lengths last, Om N Joy got the benefit of 55-year-old jockey Kent Desormeaux’s patience in rallying to get up by a half-length.
In a season when refugees from the dormant Northern California thoroughbred circuit and new lower claiming prices reshaped Santa Anita condition books, a horse from those ranks deserves recognition. Nameless (an apt name for the level), a 4-year-old gelding, came from Pleasanton to win with Frank Alvarado for a $5,000 tag, was claimed from trainer Tim McCanna by Jeff Mullins, and went on to win four of five starts at Santa Anita before going to Wyoming on Sunday to win a low-level stakes race.
One more horse could join the honor roll. Motorious, the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint runner-up who won the Joe Hernandez on opening weekend at Santa Anita, returns to action in the $100,000, Grade III Daytona downhill sprint on Saturday with Fresu riding for Phil D’Amato.
Los Alamitos’ first thoroughbred meet of the year is next, June 20-July 6, followed by the Del Mar summer season, July 18-Sept. 7. Two-year-old racing will rev up at those meets, and the buildup to the Breeders’ Cup will intensify.
The proven stars of Santa Anita will try to live up to their potential.
Follow horse racing correspondent Kevin Modesti at X.com/KevinModesti.
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