5 takeaways from Santa Anita's opening day races
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Photo:
Eclipse Sportswire
Following four graded stakes run Tuesday at Santa Anita Park, where attendance exceeded 40,000, a few takeaways...
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What do we make of the race Collected ran
What to make of the San Antonio winner, Giant Expectations? Horses mature and change from one year to the next. This guy may have turned the corner Tuesday. It took him seven races to break his maiden, but the last time he ran 7/8 of a mile he won Del Mar's Grade 2 Pat O’Brien. In his last race, the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile, he finished sixth, but jockey Gary Stevens knew he was live in the San Antonio, saying that at Del Mar, "He absolutely got left at the start, and he didn’t like the dirt getting kicked in his face. He was really the only horse that closed any ground at all that day.”
Will Unique Bella be a major player in the Distaff or Sprint division in 2018? In my opinion this is no contest: the sprint division. Unique Bella has shown to be a very good female sprinter. I believe her best distance is what she ran Tuesday while winning the Grade 1 La Brea, seven furlongs. Her connections will no doubt try her going longer, but I don't believe she will be nearly as effective against the best in her division. If managed properly in 2018, I believe she has the tools to be one of the best sprinters in the country, male or female.
Paradise Woods has really stepped up her game in her last two starts. Before the Breeders’ Cup Distaff there were a few question marks surrounding the 3-year-old daughter of Union Rags. The thinking was that when she got an easy lead, she was dangerous, but that she needed things to go her way. In the Breeders’ Cup Distaff she debunked that theory with solid third-place finish battling for the lead over a part of the track that was not the place to be that weekend. In the La Brea, she again showed the ability to relax and rate. She didn’t get the win at what was obviously not her best distance, but I have no doubt now that she will be a force in the Distaff division in 2018.
What does the Malibu result tell us? For starters, it told me that the rail bias on Breeders’ Cup weekend was even worse than I thought. City of Light was my longshot play in the Malibu based solely on his last race trip. He ran on the inside part of the track on Breeders’ Cup weekend in an optional claimer, and although he finished second as the favorite, he was one of the few that weekend to be there at the wire. As for the also-rans, Pavel passed some horses in the stretch to be fourth, so look for him to be much better when he stretches back out. These two could meet again during the current Santa Anita meet.
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