Breeders' Cup runner Anonymity aims for Rancho Bernardo win
A year older and with three more graded stakes races worth of seasoning, Anonymity is back for Sunday’s Grade 3, $100,000 Rancho Bernardo Handicap aiming for a slightly better result than the runner-up finish in a four-horse field as the 2-5 favorite in 2018.
The 5-year-old daughter of Tapit owned by LNJ Foxwoods and trained by Richard Mandella has never finished out of the money and notched three wins in eight career starts with earnings of $292,200.
“I like her, she’s had her prep race and she’s doing very well,” Mandella said Saturday morning. “She’s a good mare. Not a Beholder, but there’ll probably never be another one like Beholder. But she’s had a very good career.”
Anonymity came into the 2018 Rancho Bernardo on a two-race winning streak and the upset loss started a string of narrow losses, two to end her 4-year-old season and one in 2019.
Her final 2018 race was, however, a loss by only a neck when third to Shamrock Rose and Chalon in the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint.
And the 1 ¾-length margin of defeat to Marley’s Freedom in the Great Lady M at Los Alamitos last month could be dismissed as due in part at least to an eight-month layoff.
“The Breeders’ Cup last year, where she closed strong and just missed was her best race,” Mandella said. “We’d like to try it again this year (at Santa Anita) – that’s the plan.”