D’Amato has a closer who may surprise in Beholder Mile

Reputation aside, speed does not always have to win at Santa Anita. That perception often means there is value out there for a good closer to spoil the frontrunners’ party.

That is where Desert Dawn comes in Saturday.

Against the likes of the more-fancied Adare Manor and Sweet Azteca and Green Up, the 5-year-old mare from trainer Phil D’Amato’s barn may loom as the most likely candidate to come from off the pace and pull off the upset in the Grade 1, $300,000 Beholder Mile at 7:11 p.m. EST.

“The one thing I know about my mare, she’s going to be there,” D’Amato said this week. “And she definitely doesn’t mind two turns. Hopefully, the race develops nice, and we can get the job done.”

Desert Dawn carries morning-line odds of 8-1 for the two-turn, main-track mile. Her stablemate Turnerloose, formerly a turf specialist, is a 30-1 long shot in the field of nine older fillies and mares.

Often in the money but seldom in the winner’s circle, Desert Dawn started 2024 better than she has any other year of her career. Racing from the back of a small, tightly bunched pack, she made up ground against a slow, early pace Jan. 20 to win the La Cañada (G3) and earn a 92 Beyer Speed Figure, according to Daily Racing Form.

She will cut back over the same Santa Anita main track Saturday, still going two turns. Whether a mile will be long enough for her is a valid question, especially when looking back on last year’s renewal of this race when she was making up ground finishing fourth.

D’Amato said Desert Dawn showed him something in the La Cañada that could be a difference maker this time around.

“I just saw that the way she finished with determination and put away the horses in the field, that’s just kind of what I’ve been looking for,” D’Amato said in a telephone interview Thursday for Horse Racing Nation’s Ron Flatter Racing Pod. “For a while there’s she’s kind of always been on the fringe, in the hunt there late. But she put those horses away at the top of the lane and showed that determination, and she was not going to look back.”

Bred and owned by Hollis and Elena Crim’s Arizona-based H & E Ranch, Desert Dawn could give D’Amato the 19th Grade 1 win of his career and his first in the Beholder Mile, a race that began as the Vanity Handicap at Hollywood Park before moving to Santa Anita 10 years ago. It also would be the first top-level victory for the daughter of Cupid out of the Honour and Glory mare Ashley’s Glory.

“She took me to the Kentucky Oaks (G1),” D’Amato said, remembering Desert Dawn’s 14-1 upset in the 2022 Santa Anita Oaks (G2) that qualified her to finish a surprising third as a 50-1 long shot running for the lilies at Churchill Downs. “She ran well there and just has continued to march forward as she’s gotten older.”

This will be Desert Dawn’s ninth try in a Grade 1 race. Her best results were runner-up finishes in the 2022 and 2023 Clement L. Hirsch Stakes at Del Mar, losing by just a length last summer to Adare Manor.

And so they meet again Saturday for the fifth time. Trainer Bob Baffert’s 5-year-old Uncle Mo mare finished ahead in their last three meetings during her five-race winning streak last year. The only time Desert Dawn got the better of Adare Manor was in that Santa Anita Oaks nearly two years ago, closing on sizzling fractions of 46.46 and 1:10.56 to win by a neck.

D’Amato hopes Adare Manor will be kept company on a fast lead by Sweet Azteca, a lightly raced 4-year-old allowance winner for trainer Mike McCarthy, and Green Up, a 5-year-old who has won three minor stakes in the east for Todd Pletcher.

“I know Mike McCarthy’s got that filly coming off of a six-furlong race,” D’Amato said. “And Todd Pletcher’s got a really nice filly that likes to stay up close. There’s three speed horses there. Adare Manor, she’s much more effective on the lead. I’ve almost beaten her a time or two when she’s sat off. Just kind of reading between the lines there, I think maybe Flavien (Prat) will be sitting second on the McCarthy and see if she can go two turns.”

Prat took Desert Dawn to the La Cañada win. With him taking off in favor of Sweet Azteca, D’Amato called on Antonio Fresu to get his first ride on Desert Dawn.

“Antonio has been by main guy since the beginning of the year” D’Amato told the Santa Anita media team. “He breezed her really nicely the other day. He’s gotten to know her, has done his homework and is quite capable of winning big races.”

Turnerloose has not won since her 17-1 upset in the 2022 Rachel Alexandra (G2) at Fair Grounds. In 11 races since, the 5-year-old Nyquist mare owned by Abbondanza Racing, Medallion Racing and Dawn and Ike Thrash had two seconds, both in turf stakes. Most recently Dec. 15 she finished a distant third in the Bayakoa (G3) at Los Alamitos, her first dirt start since September 2022, when she still was based on the other side of the country with Brad Cox.

“She’s just one of those nice mares to have,” D’Amato said. “Anytime you can find one that can run on either surface like that at the graded-stakes level, that’s very hard to find.”

D’Amato decided to switch Turnerloose to the dirt because of the way the Bayakoa was taking shape.

“The race was coming up to where I thought she could kind of be more tactical in there,” he said. “She broke slow, and she ended up kind of showing a little bit more of a new dimension and came from off of it and finished well, picking up a placing. She’s just a nice filly. She’s one of those where you kind of put her in those spots when she’s doing good, and she could be the right horse at the right time on any given day.”

As for where jockey Edwin Maldonado will have her positioned Saturday, D’Amato was noncommittal, saying, “She’s very tactical. She doesn’t need to be on the lead. She can be on the lead.”

Weather should not be a factor for the Beholder Mile. The National Weather Service predicted a sunny day at Santa Anita with a high of 71 degrees and calm wind. In what has been an unusually wet winter in Southern California, D’Amato will take it.

“Hopefully,” he said, “it stays that way.”